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WHEN MEN GREW TALL 
OR THE STORY OF 

ANDREW JACKSON 






WHEN MEN GREW TALL 
OR THE STORY OF 

ANDREW JACKSON 

BY 

ALFRED HENRY LEWIS 




ILLUSTRATED 



D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK 

1907 



UBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two Coole* RKCtved 

CCl 30 •^O' 

Cwynitrf Entry 

CLASS 4 XXc, No. 
COPY 6. ' 






.\ 



Copyright, 1907, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

Copyright, 1906, 1907, by 
INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY 



Published yovemher, 1907 



TO 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

THAT MAN OF THE PUBLIC 

FOR WHOM I HAVE MOST REGARD 

AND FROM WHOSE FUTURE I AS 

AN AMERICAN MOST HOPE 

THIS VOLUME IS 

DEDICATED 

A. H. L. 



CONTENTS 



I. — Old Salisbury and the Law 
II. — The Rowan House Supper . 
III. — ^The Blooming Rachel . 
IV. — Col. Waightstill Avery Offends 
V. — ^The Winning of a Wife 
VI. — Dead-shot Dickinson 
VII. — How the General Fought . 
VIII. — England and Grim-visaged War 
IX. — The General at the Horseshoe 
X. — Florida Delenda Est . 
XI. — The Two Flags at Pensacola . 
XII. — The General Goes to New Orlean 
XIII. — The Watch-fires of the English 
XIV. — The Battle in the Dark . 
XV. — Cotton Bales and Sugar Casks 
XVI. — The Eighth of January 
XVII. — ^The Slaughter among the Stubble 
XVIII. — Odds and Ends of Time 



PAGE 

3 

13 

25 

33 

45 

59 

71 

83 

97 

"3 

127 

141 

155 
169 
181 

195 
2og 
225 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX. — The Killing Edge of Slander . . . 239 

XX. — The General Goes to the White House 251 

XXI. — Wizard Lewis Urges a Change of Front 265 

XXII. — The Downfall of Machiavelli Clay . 279 

XXIII. — The Federal Union. It Must be Pre- 
served 293 

XXIV. — The Rout of Treason 309 

XXV. — The Grave at the Garden's Foot . . 323 



viu 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING 
PAGE 



Andrew Jackson Frontispiece 

Mrs. Rachel Jackson 46 

Aaron Burr — From a painting by J. Vandyke . . 62 

Interview between General Jackson and Weathersford . 108 

General William C. C. Claiborne — From a miniature 
by A. Duval 146 

Major-General Andrew Jackson at New Orleans — From 
a painting by Chappel 172 

Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans — From a paint- 
ing by D. M. Carter 200 

Death of Pakenham at the Battle of New Orleans — 
From a painting by F. O. C. Darley . . . .212 

Andrew Jackson — From a painting by R. E. W. Earl . 226 

John Quincy Adams 240 

Henry Clay 246 

Edward Livingston — From a drawing by J. B. Long- 
acre 268 

Daniel Webster 288 

John C. Calhoun 302 

Martin Van Buren 316 

Andrew Jackson — From a portrait at The Hermitage, 
April 15, 1845 326 



I 

SALISBURY AND THE LAW 



CHAPTER I 

SALISBURY AND THE LAW 

IN this year of our Lord's grace, 1787, 
the ancient town of Salisbury, seat of jus- 
tice for Rowan County, and the buzzing 
metropolis of its region, numbers by word of 
a partisan citizenry eight hundred souls. Its 
streets are unpaved, and present an unbroken 
expanse of red North Carolina clay from one 
narrow plank sidewalk to another. In the sum- 
mer, if the weather be dry, the red clay resolves 
itself into blinding brick-red dust. In the 
spring, when the rains fall, it lapses into brick- 
red mud, and the Salisbury streets become bot- 
tomless morasses, the despair of travelers. Just 
now, it being a bright October afternoon and 
a shower having paid the town a visit but an 
hour before, the streets offer no suggestion of 
either mud or dust, but are as clean and straight 
and beautiful as a good man's morals. Trees 
rank either side, and their branches interlock 

3 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

overhead. These make every street a cathedral 
aisle, groined and arched In leafy green. 

In one of the suburbs, that Is to say about 
pistol shot from the town's commercial center, 
stands a two-story mansion. It Is painted 
white, and thereby distinguished above its neigh- 
bors, and has a heavily columned veranda all 
across Its wide face. This edifice is the resi- 
dence of Spruce McCay, a foremost member 
of the Rowan County bar. 

In a corner of the lawn, which unfolds ver- 
dantly in front of the house. Is a one-story one- 
room structure, the law office of Spruce McCay. 
Inside are two or three pine desks, much visited 
of knives In the past, and a half-dozen ram- 
shackle chairs, which have seen stronger If not 
better days. Also there Is a collection of 
shelves; and these latter hold scores of law 
books, among which " Blackstone's Commen- 
taries," " Coke on Littleton," and " Hales's 
Pleas of the Crown " are given prominent place. 
The books show musty and dog-eared, and It is 
many years since the youngest among them came 
from the printing press. 

On this October afternoon, the office has but 
one occupant. He is tall, being six feet and an 
inch, and so slim and meager that he seems six 

4 



SALISBURY AND THE LAW 

Inches taller. Besides, he stands as straight as 
a lance, with nothing of stoop to his narrow 
shoulders, and this has the effect of augmenting 
his height. 

The face Is a boy's face. It Is likewise of the 
sort called *' horse"; with hollow cheeks and 
lantern jaws. The forehead is high and nar- 
row. The yellow hair is long, and tied In a 
cue with an eelskin — for eelsklns are according 
to the latest fashionable command sent up from 
Charleston. The redeeming feature to the 
horse face is the eyes. These are big and blue 
and deep, and tell of a mighty power for either 
love or hate. They are Scotch-Irish eyes, loyal 
eyes, steadfast eyes, and of that inveterate 
breed which If aroused can outstare, outdomi- 
neer Satan. 

As adding to the horse face a look of com- 
mand, which sets well with those blue eyes — 
so capable of tenderness and ferocity — Is a high 
predatory nose. The mouth, thin-lipped and 
wide. Is replete of what folk call character, but 
does nothing to soften a general expression 
which is nothing If not iron. And yet the last 
word is applicable only at times. The horse 
face never turns iron-hard unless danger presses, 
or perilous deeds are to be done. In easier, 

5 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

relaxed hours one finds no sternness there, but 
gayety and lightness and a love of pleasure. 

In dress the horse-faced boy is rather the fop, 
with a bottle-green surtout of latest cut, high- 
collared, long-tailed, open to display a flowered 
waistcoat of as many hues as May, from which 
struggles a ruffle stiff with starch. The horse- 
faced boy has his predatory nose buried in a 
law book. This is as it should be, for he is a 
student of the learned Spruce McCay. 

There comes a step at the door; the horse- 
faced boy takes his nose from between the covers 
of the book. Spruce McCay walks in, and 
throws himself carelessly into a seat. He is 
a square, hearty man, with nose up-tilted and 
eager, as though somewhere in the distance it 
sniffed an orchard. He is of middle years, and 
well arrived at that highest ground, just where 
the pathway of life begins to slope downward 
toward the final yet still distant grave. 

Spruce McCay glances at a paper or two on 
his desk. Then, shoving all aside, he fills and 
lights a corn-cob pipe. Through the smoke 
rings he surveys the horse-faced boy; plainly he 
meditates a communication. 

"Andy, I've been thinking you over." 

Andy says " Yes? " expectantly. 
6 



SALISBURY AND THE LAW 

" You should cross the mountains." 

The blue eyes take on a bluer glint, and light 
up the horse face like azure lamps. 

" Yes, a new country is the place for you. 
You are now about to be admitted to practice 
law; not because you know law, but for the 
reason that I have recommended it. As I say, 
you have little law knowledge; but you possess 
courage, brains, perseverance, honesty, pru- 
dence and divers other traits, which you take 
from your Carrickfergus ancestors. These 
should carry you farther in the wilderness than 
any knowledge of the books." 

The predatory nose snorts, and the horse face 
begins to glow resentfully. 

" You think I know no law? " 

"No more than does Necessity I Not 
enough to keep you from being laughed at in 
Rowan County ! How should you ? Your at- 
tention and your interest have both run away to 
other things. I've watched you for two years 
past. You are deep in the lore of cockfight- 
ing, but guiltless of the Commentaries of our 
worthy Master Blackstone. If I were to ask 
you for the Rule in Shelly's Case, you would 
be posed. At the same time you could expound 
every rule that governs a horse race. In brief 
3 7 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

you are accomplished in many gentlemanly 
things, while as barren of law learning as a 
Hottentot. Now if you were a lad of fortune, 
instead of being as poor as the crows, you might 
easily cut a figure of elegant idleness on the 
North Carolina circuits. But you lack utterly 
of that money required to gild and make toler- 
able your ignorance here at home. In the woods 
along the Cumberland, that is to say in the Nash- 
ville and Jonesboro courts, where ignorance and 
poverty are the rule, your deficiencies will count 
for trifles. Also you will be surrounded by 
conditions that promote courage, honesty and 
quickness to a first importance. On the Cum- 
berland the fact that you are a dead shot with 
rifle or pistol, and can back the most unman- 
ageable horse that ever looked through a bridle, 
will place you higher In the confidence of men 
than would all the law that Hobart, Hales and 
Hawkins ever knew. Now don't get angry. 
Think over what I've said; the longer you look 
at it, the more you'll feel that I am right. I'll 
see that you are given your sheepskin as a 
lawyer; and, when you decide to migrate, I'll 
have you commissioned In that new country as 
attorney for the state. This last will send you 
headlong into the midst of a backwoods prac- 

8 



SALISBURY AND THE LAW 

tice, where those native virtues you own should 
find a field for their exercise, and your talents 
for cockfighting and horse racing, added to your 
absolute genius for firearms, be sure to advance 
you far." 

Spruce McCay raps the ashes from his corn- 
cob pipe. Just then one of the house negroes 
taps at the door, as preliminary to Intruding 
a respectful head. The respectful head an- 
nounces that visitors have arrived at the big 
white mansion. Spruce McCay at this quits the 
office, and the horse-faced Andy finds himself 
alone. 

For one hour he ponders the unpalatable 
words of his worthy master. His vanity has 
been hurt; his self-love ruffled. None the less 
he feels that a deal of truth lies tucked away 
in what Spruce McCay has said. Besides a 
plunge into the untried wilderness rather 
matches his taste, and a promised state's attor- 
neyship Is not to be despised. 

As the horse-faced Andy ruminates these 
things, laughter and much joyous clatter Is 
heard at the door. This time It Is his two fel- 
low students, Crawford and McNalry. These 
young gentlemen have been out with their guns, 
and now present themselves with a double back- 

9 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

load of quails as the fruits of it. The pair be- 
gin vociferously to inform the horse-faced Andy 
concerning their day's adventures. He halts 
the conversational flow with a repressive lift of 
the hand. 

" Gentlemen," says he, with a vast affectation 
of dignity, and as though sixty were the years 
of each instead of twenty, " I desire your com- 
pany at supper in my rooms. Come at 7 
o'clock. I shall have news for you — news, and 
a proposition." 



II 

THE ROWAN HOUSE SUPPER 



CHAPTER II 

THE ROWAN HOUSE SUPPER 

THE horse-faced Andy precedes the 
coming of his two friends to that 
supper by two hours. As he moves 
up the street toward the Rowan House, fair 
faces beam on him and fair hands wave him a 
salutation from certain Salisbury verandas. In 
return he doffs his hat with an exaggerated 
politeness, which becomes him as the acknowl- 
edged beau of the town. One cannot blame 
those beaming fair faces and those saluting 
hands. Slim, elegant, confident with a kind of 
polished cockyness that does not ill become his 
years, our horse-faced one possesses what the 
world calls "presence." No one will look on him 
without being impressed; he is congenitally re- 
markable, and to see him once is to ever after- 
ward expect to hear him. Besides, for all his 
foppishness, there is a scar on his sandy head, 
and a second on his hand, which were made by 

13 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

an English saber when he had no more than 
entered upon his teens. Also he has shed Eng- 
lish blood to pay for those scars; and in a day 
which still heaves and tosses with the ground 
swells of the Revolution, such stark matters 
brevet one to the respect of men and the love 
of women. 

The foppish, horse-faced Andy strides into 
the Rowan House. In the long-room he meets 
mine host Brown, who has fame as a publi- 
can, and none as a sinner, throughout North 
Carolina. 

" Supper in my rooms, Mr. Brown," com- 
mands our hero; "supper for three. Have it 
hot and ready at sharp seven. Also let us have 
plenty of whisky and tobacco." 

Mine host Brown says that all shall be as 
ordered. 

The foppish Andy, with that grave manner 
of dignity which laughs at his boyish twenty 
years, explains to his landlord that he will call 
for his bill in the morning. 

" Have my horse, Cherokee," he says, " well 
groomed and saddled. To-morrow I leave 
Salisbury." 

"Going West?" 

" West," returns Andy. 
14 



ROWAN HOUSE SUPPER 

" As to the bill," ventures mine host Brown, 
" would you like to play a game of all-fours, 
and make it double or nothing? " 

Andy the horse-faced hesitates. 

" You have such vile luck," he says, as though 
remonstrating with mine host Brown for a fault. 
" It seems shameful to play with you, since you 
never win." 

Mine host Brown looks sheepishly apologetic. 

" For one as eager to play as I am," he re- 
sponds, " it does look as though I ought to 
know more about the game. However, since 
it's your last night, we might as well preserve 
a record." 

Andy the horse-faced yields to the rabid 
anxiety of mine host Brown to gamble. The 
game shall be played presently; meanwhile, there 
is an errand which takes him to his rooms. 

Andy goes to his rooms: mine host Brown, 
after preparing a table in the long-room for the 
promised game, saunters fatly — being rotund as 
a publican should be — into the kitchen, to leave 
directions concerning that triangular supper. 
There he encounters his wife, as rotund as him- 
self, supervising the energies of a phalanx of 
black Amazons, who form the culinary forces 
of the Rowan House. 

15 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

" Young Jackson leaves in the morning, 
mother," observes mine host Brown to Mrs. 
Brown, whom he always addresses as 
" mother." 

"For good?" asks Mrs. Brown, who is 
singeing the pin feathers from a chicken of much 
fatness, and exceeding yellow as to leg. 

" Oh, I knew he was going," returns mine 
host Brown, rather irrelevantly. " Spruce Mc- 
Cay told me that he was about to advise him to 
emigrate to the western counties. Spruce says 
the Cumberland country is just the place for 
him." 

"And now I suppose," remarks Mrs. Brown, 
" you'll let him win a good-by game of cards, 
to square his bill." 

" Why not? " returns mine host Brown. 
"He's got no money; never had any money. 
You yourself said, when he came here, to give 
him his board free, because you knew and loved 
his dead mother. Now the Christian thing is to 
let him win it. In that way his pride is saved; 
at the same time it gives me amusement." 

" Well, Marmaduke," says Mrs. Brown, 
moving off with the yellow-legged fowl, " I'm 
sure I don't care how you manage, only so you 
don't take his money." 

i6 



ROWAN HOUSE SUPPER 

" There never was a chance, mother. He 
never has any money, after his clothes are 
bought." 

The game of all-fours is played; and is won 
by Andy of the horse face, who thereby rounds 
oft a run of card-luck that has continued un- 
broken for two years. 

" It looks as though I'd never beat you ! " 
exclaims mine host Brown, pretending sadness 
and imitating a sigh. 

" You ought never to gamble," advises the 
horse-faced Andy solemnly. 

Mine host Brown produces his bill, wherein 
the charges for board, lodging, laundry, tobacco, 
and whisky in pints, quarts and gallons are set 
down on one side, to be balanced and acquitted 
by divers sums lost at all-fours, the same being 
noted opposite. 

"There you are! All square!" says mine 
host Brown. 

" But the charges for to-night's supper? " 

" Mother " — meaning Mrs. Brown — " says 
the supper is to be with her compliments." 

Steaming hot, the supper comes promptly at 
seven. It Is followed, steaming hot, by un- 
limited whisky punch. Pipes are lighted, and, 
with glasses at easy hand, the three boys draw 
17 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

about the fire. The punch, the pipes, and the 
crackling log fire are very comfortable adjuncts 
on an October night. 

"And now," cries Crawford,, who is full of 
life and interest, " now for the news and the 
proposition! " 

McNairy nods owlish assent to the words of 
his volatile friend. He intends one day to be 
a judge, and, while quite as lively as Crawford, 
seizes on occasions such as this to practice his 
features in a formidable woolsack gravity. 

*' First," observes Andy, soberly sipping his 
punch, "let me put a question: What is my 
standing in Rowan County? " 

" You are the recognized authority," cries 
Crawford, " on dog fighting, cockfighting, and 
horse racing." 

McNairy nods. 

" Humph! " says Andy. Then, on the heels 
of a pause: "And what should you say were 
my chief accomplishments? " 

Again Crawford takes it upon himself to 
reply. 

" You ride, shoot, run, jump, wrestle, dance 
and make love beyond expression." 

McNairy the judicial nods. 

" Humph ! " says Andy. 
i8 



ROWAN HOUSE SUPPER 

The trio puff and sip in silence. 

" You say nothing for my knowledge of 
law? " This from the disgruntled Andy, with 
a rising inflection that is like finding fault. 

" No ! " cry the others in hearty concert. 

" You wouldn't believe us if we did," adds 
McNairy of the future woolsack. 

" Neither would the Judge," returns Andy 
cynically. " The Judge " is the title by which 
the three designate their master, Spruce Mc- 
Cay. Andy goes on: " The news I promised 
is this. To-morrow I leave Salisbury. The 
Judge has recommended my admission to the 
bar, and I shall take the oath and get my license 
before I start. I shall transfer myself to the 
region along the Cumberland, where I am told 
a barrister of my singular lack of ability should 
find plenty of practice." 

" Why do you leave old Rowan? " asks wool- 
sack McNairy, beginning to take an interest. 

" Because I have no education, less law, and 
still less money. It seems that these are condi- 
tions precedent to staying in Rowan with 
credit." 

" Well," cries McNairy the judicial, grasp- 
ing Andy's long bony hand, " you have as much 
education, as much law, and as much money as 
19 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

L Under the circumstances I shall go with 
you." 

" And I," breaks in the lively Crawford, 
" since I have none of those ignorant and pov- 
erty-eaten qualifications you name, but on the 
contrary am rich, wise and learned — I shall re- 
main here. When the wilderness casts you fel- 
lows out, come back and I shall welcome you. 
Pending which — as Parson Hicks would say — 
receive my blessing." 

The evening wears on amid clouds of tobacco 
smoke and rivers of punch. At the close the 
three take hold of hands, and sing a farewell 
song very badly. Then, since they look on the 
evening as a sacred one, they wind up by break- 
ing the pipes they have smoked and the glasses 
they have drunk from, to save them in the here- 
after from profane and vulgar uses. At last, 
rather deviously, they make their various ways 
to bed. 

The next day, young Andrew Jackson, bar- 
rister and counselor at law, with all his belong- 
ings — save the rifle he carries, and the pistols 
in his saddle holsters — crowded into a pair of 
saddlebags, rides out of Salisbury on his bay 
horse Cherokee. He will stop at Martinsville 
for a space, awaiting the judicial McNairy. 

20 



ROWAN HOUSE SUPPER 

Then the pair are to set their willing, hopeful 
faces for the Cumberland. 

As Andy the horse-faced rides away that Oc- 
tober afternoon, Henry Clay is a fatherless boy 
of nine, living with his mother at the Virginia 
Slashes; Daniel Webster, a sickly child of six, 
is toddling about his father's New Hampshire 
farm; John C. Calhoun is a baby four years old 
in a South Carolina farmhouse; John Quincy 
Adams, nineteen and just home from a polishing 
trip to France, Is a Harvard student; Martin 
Van Buren, aged four. Is playing about the tap 
room of his Dutch father's tavern at Kinder- 
hook; while Aaron Burr, fortunate, foremost 
and full of promise, has already won high sta- 
tion at the New York bar. None of these has 
ever heard of Andy the horse-faced, nor he of 
them; yet one and all they are fated to grow 
well acquainted with one another in the years to 
come, and before the curtain is rung finally down 
on that tragedy-comedy-farce which, played to 
benches ever full and ever empty, men call Ex- 
istence. 



Ill 

THE BLOOMING RACHEL 



CHAPTER III 

THE BLOOMING RACHEL 

NASHVILLE is the merest scrambling 
huddle of log houses. The most 
Imposing edifice Is a blockhouse, 
built of logs squared by the broadaxe. It is the 
home of the widow Donelson ; and, since it Is all 
her husband left her when the Indians shot him 
down at the plow-stilts, and because she must 
live, the widow Donelson has turned the block- 
house into a boarding house. 

With the widow Donelson dwells her daugh- 
ter Rachel, a beautiful brunette of twenty, and 
the belle of the Cumberland. Rachel Is viva- 
cious and bright; and, while there Is much con- 
fusion among her nouns, pronouns, verbs and 
adverbs In the matters of case, number, and 
tense, she shines forth an indomitable conversa- 
tionist. With frontier freedom she laughs 
with everybody, jests with everybody, delights 
in everybody's admiration; and this does not 

25 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

please her husband, Lewis Robards, who is ig- 
norant, suspicious, narrow, lazy, shiftless, jeal- 
ous, and generally drunk. One time and an- 
other he has accused Rachel of a tenderness for 
every man in the settlement, and their quarrels 
have been frequent and fierce. 

It is evening; the widow Donelson is prepar- 
ing supper for the half dozen boarders, assisted 
by the blooming Rachel. The moody Robards, 
half soaked in corn whisky, sits by the open 
door, ear on the conversation, eye on the not- 
over-distant woods. If the worthless Robards 
will not work, at least he may maintain a half- 
bright lookout for murderous Indians; and he 
does. 

The widow Donelson glances across from the 
corn bread she is mixing. 

" The runner who came on ahead," she says, 
addressing the blooming Rachel, " reports the 
party as being due to-morrow. Mr. Jackson, 
the new State's Attorney, who will come with it, 
is to board and lodge with us." 

The blooming Rachel looks brightly up. 
The drunken Robards likewise looks up ; but his 
face is gloomy with incipient jealousy. 

"A Mr. Jackson, eh?" he sneers. Then, 
to the blooming Rachel: "It's mighty likely 

26 



THE BLOOMING RACHEL 

you'll find in him a new lover to try your wiles 
on." 

The blooming Rachel colors and her black 
eyes snap, but she holds her tongue. The widow 
Donelson is also silent. The mother and daugh- 
ter have found wordlessness the best return to 
those insults, which it is the habit of the jealous 
drunkard to hurl at his pretty wife. 

The runner made true report, and the party 
in which travels the horse-faced Andy makes its 
appearance next day. Tall, slender, elegant, 
self-possessed, and with a manner which marks 
him above the common, he is disliked by the 
drunken Robards on sight. When he declines 
to drink with that sot, the dislike crystallizes into 
hatred. The outrageous jealousy of Robards 
has found a new reason for its green-eyed ex- 
istence, and he already goes drunkenly ponder- 
ing the slaughter of the horse-faced Andy. 
Since he will never advance beyond the pond- 
ering stage, for certain reasons called " craven " 
among men of clean courage, his homicidal lucu- 
brations are the less important. 

Andy the horse-faced does not notice Rob- 
ards. He does, however, notice with a thrill 
of pleasure the beautiful Rachel, and is glad to 
find his lines are down in such pleasant places. 
27 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

He Is vastly taken with the boarding house of 
the widow Donelson, and incautiously says as 
much. He praises her corn pone and fried 
squirrel, and vehemently avers that her hog and 
hominy are the best he ever ate. 

Rachel the blooming does not allow her hus- 
band's jealousy to interrupt hospitality, and piles 
high the young State's Attorney's plate with 
these delicacies. She even brings out a store of 
wild honey and cream — dainties sparse and few 
and far between in these rude regions. She 
calls this " hospitality " ; her jealous drunkard 
of a husband calls it " making advances," He 
says that in the course of a long, and he might 
have added misspent, life, he has observed that 
a coquette, with designs on a man's heart, never 
fails to begin by making an ally of his stomach. 

" Hence," says the drunken deductionist, 
" that honey and cream." 

That night, after Rachel the blooming and 
her drunken husband retire, a bitter quarrel 
breaks out between them. It rages with such 
fury that the bicker arouses one Overton, who 
occupies the adjoining chamber. Mr. Overton 
is a severe character, firm and clear as to his 
rights. He objects to having his rest disturbed, 
alleging that he has troubles of his own. Tak- 
28 



THE BLOOMING RACHEL 

ing final offense at the language of the brute 
Robards, which is more emphatic than nice, he 
gets his pistols. Rapping on the intervening 
wall to invoke attention, he informs that vitu- 
perative drunkard of his intention to instantly 
put him (Robards) to death, should he so much 
as raise his voice above a whisper for the balance 
of the night. 

Rachel seeks her mother, and the jealous 
drunkard quiets down. He is not unacquainted 
with Mr. Overton, who is reputed to possess as 
restless a brace of hair triggers as ever owned 
flint and pan. Altogether he is precisely the 
one whose word would carry weight with such 
as Robards, and, on the back of his interference 
in the domestic affairs of that inebriate, a great 
peace settles upon the blockhouse of the widow 
Donelson which abides throughout the night. 

As for the horse-faced State's Attorney, he 
knows nothing of the differences between Ra- 
chel and the jealous Robards. He does not 
sleep in the blockhouse, having been appointed 
to a blanket couch in the " Bunk House," a 
separate dormitory structure which stands at a 
little distance. 

During breakfast, the blooming Rachel again 
freights daintily deep the plate of the young 
29 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

State's Attorney. Thereupon the favored one 
beams his thanks, while behind his back as 
though to soothe his hate, the malevolent Rob- 
ards sits cleaning a rifle, casting upon him the 
while an occasional midnight look. Just across 
is the taciturn Overton, proprietor of those rest- 
less hair triggers, wondering over his bacon and 
eggs where this drama of love and threatened 
murder is to end. 



IV 

COLONEL WAIGHTSTILL 
AVERY OFFENDS 



CHAPTER IV 

COLONEL WAIGHTSTILL AVERY OFFENDS 

NOW, when the horse-faced Andy finds 
himself In the Cumberland country, 
he begins to look about him. Be- 
ing a lawyer, his instinct leads him to consider 
those opposing ranks of commerce, the debtor 
and creditor classes. He finds the former com- 
posed of persons of the highest honor. Also, 
their honor is sensitive and easily touched, be- 
ing sensitive and touchy in proportion as the 
bulk of their debts is increased. The debtor 
class, as the same finds representation about those 
two Cumberland forums, Nashville and Jones- 
boro, holds it to be the privilege of every gen- 
tleman, when dunned, to challenge and If prac- 
ticable kill his creditor honorably at ten paces. 
So firm indeed is the debtor class in this be- 
lief, that the creditor class, less warlike and with 
more to lose, seldom presents a bill. Neither 
does it refuse the opposition credit; for the 
33 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

debtor class also clings to the no less formidable 
theory, that to refuse credit is an insult quite as 
stinging as a dun direct. 

In short, the horse-faced Andy discovers the 
region to be a very Arcadia for debtors. Their 
credit is without a limit and their debts are never 
due. He resolves to disturb these commercial 
Arcadians; he will break upon them as a Satan 
of solvency come to trouble their debt paradise. 

The horse-faced Andy, as has been noted, is 
Scotch-Irish. Being Irish, his honor is as sen- 
sitive and his soul as warlike as are those of the 
most debt-eaten individual along the Cumber- 
land. Being Scotch, he believes debts should 
be paid, and holds that a creditor may ask for 
his money without forfeiting life. He urges 
these views in tavern and street; and there- 
upon the creditors, taking heart, come to him 
with their claims. He accepts the trusts thus 
proffered; as a corollary, having now flown in 
the face of the militant debtor class, he is soon 
to prove his manhood. 

The horse-faced Andy files a declaration for 
a client, on a mixed claim based upon bacon, 
molasses and rum. The defendant, a person- 
age yclept Irad Miller, genus debtor, species 
keel boatman, is a very patrician among bank- 
34 



COLONEL AVERY OFFENDS 

rupts, boasting that he owes more and pays less 
than any man south of the Ohio river. Also, 
having been already offended by the foppish 
frivolity of that ruffled shirt and grass-green 
surtout, he is outraged now, when the ruffled 
grass-green one brings suit against him. 

Breathing fire and smoke, the insulted Irad 
lowers his horns, and starts for the horse-faced 
Andy. His methods at this crisis are character- 
istic of the Cumberland; he merely grinds the 
horse-faced Andy's polished boot beneath his 
heel, mentioning casually the while that he him- 
self Is " half boss, half alligator," and can drink 
the Cumberland dry at a draught. 

This is fighting talk, and the horse-faced 
Andy so accepts It. He surveys the truculent 
Irad with the cautious tail of his eye, and finds 
him discouragingly tall and broad and thick. 
The survey takes time, but the Injured Irad pre- 
vents It being wasted by again grinding the pol- 
ished toes. 

Andy the strategic suddenly seizes a rail from 
the nearby fence, and charges the indebted one. 
The end of the rail strikes that Insolvent in what 
is vulgarly known as the pit of the stomach, and 
doubles him up like a two-foot rule. At that, 
he who Is " half boss, half aUIgator," gives 

35 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

forth a screech of which an Injured wild cat 
might be proud, and perceiving the rail poised 
for a second charge makes off. This small ad- 
venture gives the horse-faced Andy station, and 
an avalanche of claims pours in upon him. 

Having established himself in the confidence 
of common men, it still remains with our horse- 
faced hero to conquer the esteem of the bar. 
The opportunity is not a day behind his collision 
with that violent one of equine-alligator genesis. 
In good sooth, It is an offshoot thereof. 

The bruised Irad's case is up for trial. His 
counsel. Colonel Waightstill Avery, hails from 
a hamlet, called Morganton, on the thither side 
of the Blue Ridge. Colonel Waightstill is of 
middle age, pompous and high, and the youth 
of Andy — slim, lean, eager, horse face as hair- 
less as an egg — offends him. 

" Your honor," cries Colonel Waightstill, 
addressing the bench, " who, pray, is the oppos- 
ing counsel?" The boyish Andy stands up. 
" Must I, your honor," continues the outraged 
Colonel Waightstill, " must I cross forensic 
blades with a child? Have I journeyed all the 
long mountain miles from Morganton to try 
cases with babes and sucklings? Or perhaps, 
your honor " — here Colonel Waightstill waxes 

36 



COLONEL AVERY OFFENDS 

sarcastic — " I have mistaken the place. Pos- 
sibly this is not a court, but a nursery." 

Colonel Waightstill sits down, and the horse- 
faced Andy, on the leaf of a law book, indites 
the following: 

August 12, 1788. 
Sir: When a man's feelings and charector 
are injured he ought to seek speedy redress. 
My charector you have injured; and further you 
have Insulted me in the presunce of a court and 
a large aujence. I therefore call upon you as a 
gentleman to give me satisfaction for the same ; 
I further call upon you to give me an answer 
immediately without Equivocation and I hope 
you can do without dinner until the business is 
done; for it is consistent with the character of 
a gentleman when he injures a man to make 
speedy reparation; therefore I hope you will 
not fail in meeting me this day. 

From yr Hbl St., 

Andw Jackson. 

The horse-faced one spells badly; but Marl- 
borough did, Washington does and Napoleon 
will spell worse. It is a notable fact that con- 
quering militant souls have ever been better with 
the sword than with the spelling book. 

The judge is a gentleman of quick and ap- 
prehensive eye, as frontier jurists must be. 
37 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Also, he is of finest sensibilities, and can appre- 
ciate the feelings of a man of honor. He sees 
the note shoved across to Colonel Waightstill 
by the horse-faced Andy, and at once orders a 
recess. The judge, with delicate tact, says the 
Cumberland bottoms are heavy with the seeds 
of fever, and that it is his practice to consume 
prudent rum and quinine at this hour. 

While the judge goes for his rum and quinine, 
Colonel Waightstill and the horse-faced Andy 
repair to a convenient ravine at the rear of the 
log courthouse. A brother practitioner attends 
upon Colonel Waightstill, while the Interests of 
the horse-faced Andy are conserved by Mr. 
Overton, who espouses his cause as a fellow 
boarder at the widow Donelson's. Mr. Overton 
has with him his Invaluable hair triggers; and, 
since he wins the choice, presents them politely, 
butt first, to the second of Colonel Waightstill, 
who selects one for his principal. The ground 
Is measured and pegged; the fight will be at ten 
paces. 

As Mr. Overton gives the horse-faced Andy 
his weapon, he asks: 

" What can you do at this distance? " 

" Snuff a candle." 

"Good! Let me offer a word of advice: 

38 



COLONEL AVERY OFFENDS 

Don't kill; don't even wound. The casus belli 
does not justify it, and you can establish your 
credit without. Should your adversary require 
a second shot, it will then be the other way. His 
failure to apologize, coupled with a demand for 
another shot, should mean his death warrant." 

The horse-faced Andy approves this counsel. 
And yet, if he must not wound he may warn, 
and to that admonitory end sends his ounce of 
lead so as to all but brush the ear of Colonel 
Waightstill. That gentleman's bullet flies safely 
wild. After the exchange of shots, the seconds 
hold a consultation. Mr. Overton says that his 
principal must receive an apology, or the duel 
shall proceed. 

Colonel Waightstill's second talks with that 
gentleman, and finds him much softened as to 
mood. The flying lead, brushing his ear like 
the wing of a death angel, has set him thinking. 
He now distrusts that simile of " babes and suck- 
lings," and is even ready to concede the Intima- 
tion that the horse-faced Andy Is a child to be 
far-fetched. Indeed, he has conceived a vast 
respect, almost an affection, for his youthful 
adversary, and will not only apologize, but de- 
clares that, for purposes of litigation, he shall 
hereafter regard the horse-faced Andy as a being 
4 39 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

of mature years. All this says Colonel Waight- 
still, under the respectful spell of that flying 
lead; and if not in these phrases, then in words 
to the same effect. 

The horse-faced Andy shakes hands with 
Colonel Waightstill, and they return to the log 
courthouse, where the rum-and-quinine jurist 
is pleasantly awaiting them. The trial is again 
called, and the horse-faced Andy secures a ver- 
dict. What is of more consequence, he secures 
the respect of bench and bar; hereafter no 
one will so much as dream of disputing his word, 
should he lay claim to the years of Methuselah. 
That careful grazing shot at Colonel Waight- 
still, ages the horse-faced Andy wondrously in 
Cumberland estimation. 

Good fortune is not yet done with Andy of 
the horse face. Within hours after the meeting 
in that convenient ravine, he is given new oppor- 
tunity to fix himself in the good regard of folk. 

It is on the verge of midnight. A gentle- 
man, unsteady with his cups, seeks temporary 
repose on the grassy litter which surrounds the 
tavern haystack. Being comfortable, and safe 
against a fall, he of the too many cups refreshes 
himself with his pipe. Pipe going, he falls into 
thought; and next, in the midst of his pre- 
40 



COLONEL AVERY OFFENDS 

occupation, he sets the hay afire. It burns like 
tinder, and the flames, wind-flaunted, catch the 
thatched roof of the stable. 

The settlement is threatened; the wild cry of 
" Fire! " is raised; from tavern and dwelling, 
men, women and children come trooping forth, 
clad in little besides looks of terror. The scene 
is one of confusion and misdirection; no one 
knows what to do. Meanwhile, the flames leap 
from the stable to the tavern itself. 

It is Andy the horse-faced who brings order 
out of chaos. Born for leadership, command 
comes easy to him. He calls for buckets, and 
with military quickness forms a double line of 
men between the river and the flames. The full 
buckets chase each other along one line, while 
the empties are returned by the second to be re- 
filled. When the lines are working in watery 
concord, he organizes the balance of the com- 
munity into a wet-blanket force. By his orders, 
coverlets, tablecloths, blankets, anything, every- 
thing that will serve, are dipped in the river 
and spread on exposed roofs. In an encourag- 
ingly short space, the fire is checked and the 
settlement saved. 

While the excitement is at its height, that pipe 
incendiary, who started the conflagration, breaks 
41 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

through the double line of water passers, and 
begins to give orders. He is as wild as was 
Nero at the burning of Rome. Finding this 
person disturbing the effective march of events, 
the horse-faced Andy — who is nothing if not 
executive — knocks him down with a bucket. 
The Cumberland Nero falls into the river, and 
the ducking, acting In happy conjunction with 
the stunning thump, brings him to the shore 
a changed and sobered man. That bucket 
promptitude, wherewith he deposed Nero, be- 
comes one of those several immediate argu- 
ments which make mightily for the communal 
advancement of Andy the horse-faced. 



y 

THE WINNING OF A WIFE 



CHAPTER V 

THE WINNING OF A WIFE 

ALL these energetic matters happen at 
Jonesboro, where the horse-faced one, 
in the interests of the creditor class 
aforesaid, is dancing attendance upon the court. 
The fame of them travels to Nashville in ad- 
vance of his return, and works a respectful 
change toward him in the attitude of the public. 
Hereafter he is to be called "Andrew " by ones 
who know him well; while others, less ac- 
quainted, will on military occasions hail him as 
" Cap'n " and on civil ones as " Square." On 
every hand, reference to him as " horse-faced " 
is to be dropped; wherefore this history, the 
effort of which is to follow close in the wake 
of the actual, will from this point profit by that 
polite example. 

The household at the widow Donelson's 
learns of the Jonesboro valor and executive 
promptitude of the young State's Attorney. 
The blooming Rachel rejoices, while her 

45 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

drunken spouse turns sullen. His jealousy of 
Andrew is multiplied, as that young gentleman's 
fame increases. The fame, however, is of a sort 
that seriously mislikes the drunken Robards, 
who is at heart a hare. Wherefore, while his 
jealousy grows, he no longer makes it the tavern 
talk, as was his sottish wont. 

Affairs run briskly prosperous with Andrew, 
and he finds himself engaged in half the litiga- 
tion of the Cumberland. There is little money, 
but the region owns a currency of its own. Some 
wise man has said that the circulating medium 
of Europe is gold, of Africa men, of Asia 
women, of America land. The clients of An- 
drew rf'ward his labors with land, and many a 
" six-forty," by which the slang of the Cumber- 
Jand identifies a section of land, becomes his. 
Finally he owns such an array of wilderness 
square miles, polka-dotted about between the 
Cumberland and the Mississippi, that the aggre- 
gate acreage swells into the thousands. Those 
acres, however, are hardly more valuable than 
are the brown leaves wherewith each autumn 
carpets them. 

While the ardent Andrew is pushing his way 
at the bar, and accumulating " six-forties," he 
continues to board at the widow Donelson's. 
46 




Mrs. Rachel Jackson 



THE WINNING OF A WIFE 

The blooming Rachel delights in his society — 
so polished, so splendidly different from that of 
the drunkard Robards ! Once or twice, too, 
when Andrew, in his saddlebag excursions from 
court to court, has a powder-burning brush with 
Indians and saves his sandy scalp by a narrow- 
ish margin, the red cheek of Rachel is seen to 
whiten. That is to say, the drunkard Robards 
sees it whiten; the purblind Andrew never once 
observes that mark of tender concern. The 
pistol repute of the decisive Andrew serves when 
he is by to stifle remark on the lip of the re- 
creant Robards. But there come hours when 
the latter has the blooming Rachel to himself, 
at which time he raves like one demon-pos- 
sessed. He avers that the unconscious Andrew 
is the lover of the blooming Rachel, and in 
so doing lies like an Ananias. However, the 
drunken one has the excuse of jealousy; which 
emotion is not only green-eyed but cross-eyed, 
and of all things — as history shows — most apt 
to mislead the accurate vision of folk. 

Andrew overflows of sentiment, and often in 
moments of loneliness turns homesick. This is 
the more marvelous, since never from his very 
cradle days has he had a home. Being homesick 
^-one may as well call it that, for want of a 

47 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

better word — he goes out to the orchard fence, 
a lonely spot, cut off from view by intercepting 
bushes, and devotes himself to melancholy. 
This melancholy, as often happens with high- 
strung, vanity-bitten young gentlemen, is for the 
greater part nothing more than the fomenta- 
tions of his egotism and conceit. But Andrew 
does not know this truth, and wears a fine tragic 
air as one beset of what poets term " a name- 
less grief." 

One day the blooming Rachel discovers the 
melancholy Andrew, dreamily mournful by the 
orchard fence. She watches him unperceived, 
and her gentle bosom yearns over him. The 
blooming Rachel is not wanting in that taint of 
romanticism to which all border folk are born; 
and now, to see this Hector! — this lion among 
men ! — so bent in sadness, moves her tenderly. 
At that it is only a kind of maternal tenderness; 
for the blooming Rachel has a wealth of 
mother love, and no children upon whom to 
lavish it. She stands looking at the melancholy 
one, and would give worlds if she might only 
take his head to her sympathetic bosom and 
cherish it. 

The blooming Rachel approaches, and cheer- 
ily greets the gloomy one. She seeks to uplift 
48 



THE WINNING OF A WIFE 

his spirits. Under the sweet spell of her, he 
tells how wholly alone he Is. He speaks of his 
mother and how her very grave Is lost. He 
relates how the Revolution swallowed up the 
lives of his two brothers. 

"And your father?" 

" He was burled the week before I was born." 

The two stay by the orchard fence a long 
while, and talk on many things; but never once 
on love. 

The drunken Robards, fiend-guided, gets a 
green-eyed glimpse of them. With that his 
jealousy receives added edge, and — the better 
to decide upon a course — he hurries to a grog- 
gery to pour down rum by the cup. Either he 
drinks beyond his wont, or that rum Is of sterner 
impulse than common; for he becomes pot- 
valorous, and with curses vows the death of 
Andrew. 

The drunken Robards, filled with rum to the 
brim, issues forth to execute his threats. He 
finds his victim still sadly by the orchard fence ; 
but alone, since the blooming Rachel has been 
called to aid In supper-getting. The pot-valor- 
ous Robards bursts into a torrent of jealous 
recrimination. 

The melancholy Andrew cannot believe his 
49 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

ears I His melancholy takes flight when he 
does understand, and in its stead comes white- 
hot anger. 

"What! you scoundrel!" he roars. The 
blue eyes blaze with such ferocity that Robards 
the craven starts back. In a moment the other 
has control of himself. " Sir! " he grits, " you 
shall give me satisfaction ! " 

Robards the drunken says nothing, being 
frozen of fear. The enraged Andrew stalks 
away in quest of the taciturn Overton who owns 
those hair triggers. 

" Let us take a walk," says hair-trigger Over- 
ton, running his arm inside the lean elbow of 
Andrew. Once in the woods, he goes on : 
" What do you want to do? " 

" Kill him ! I would put him in hell in a 
second! " 

" Doubtless ! Having killed him, what then 
will you do? " 

" I don't understand." 

" Let me explain : You kill Robards. His 
wife is a widow. Also, because you have killed 
Robards in a quarrel over her, she is the talk of 
the settlement. Therefore, I put the question : 
Having made Rachel the scandal of the Cum- 
berland, what will you do? " 
50 



THE WINNING OF A WIFE 

There is a long, embarrassed pause. Pres- 
ently Andrew lifts his gaze to the cool eyes of 
his friend, 

" I shall offer her marriage. She shall, if 
she accept it, have the protection of my 
name." 

" And then," goes on the ice-and-iron Over- 
ton, " the scandal will be redoubled. They will 
say that you and Rachel, plotting together, have 
murdered Robards to open a wider way for your 
guilty loves." 

Andrew takes a deep breath. " What would 
you counsel? " he asks. 

" One thing," — laying his hand on Andrew's 
shoulder — " under no circumstances, not even 
to save your own life, must you slay Robards. 
You might better slay Rachel; since his death 
by your hand spells her destruction. Good 
people would avoid her as though she were the 
plague. Never more, on the Cumberland, 
should she hold up her head." 

That night the fear-eaten Robards solves the 
situation which his crazy jealousy has created. 
He starts secretly for the North. He tells two 
or three that he will never more call the bloom- 
ing Rachel wife. 

For a month there is much silence, and some 

51 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

restraint, at the widow Donelson's. This con- 
dition wears away; and, while no one says so, 
everybody feels relaxed and relieved by the ab- 
sence of the drunken Robards. No one names 
him, and there is tacit agreement to forget the 
creature. The drunken Robards, however, has 
no notion of being forgotten. Word comes 
down from above that he will return and reclaim 
his wife. At this the black eyes of Rachel 
sparkle dangerously. 

" That monster," she cries, *' shall never 
kiss my lips, nor so much as touch my hand 
again I " 

By advice of her mother, and to avoid the 
drunken Robards — who promises his hateful ap- 
pearance with each new day — the blooming 
Rachel resolves to take passage on a keel boat 
for Natchez. Andrew, in deep concern, de- 
clares that he shall accompany her. He says 
that he goes to protect her from those Indians 
who make a double fringe of savage peril along 
the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Mississippi. 
Overton, the taciturn, shrugs his shoulders; the 
keel-boat captain is glad to have with him the 
steadiest rifle along the Cumberland, and says 
as much; the blooming Rachel is glad, but says 
so only with her eyes; the Nashville good people 

52 



THE WINNING OF A WIFE 

say nothing, winking in silence sophisticated 
eyes. 

Robards the drunken, now when they are 
gone, plays the ill-used husband to the hilts. 
He seems to revel in the role, and, to keep it 
from cooling in interest, petitions the Virginia 
Legislature for a divorce. In course of time 
the news climbs the mountains, and descends 
into the Cumberland, that the divorce is 
granted ; while similar word floats down to Nat- 
chez with the keel boats. 

The slow story of the blooming Rachel's re- 
lease reaches our two in Natchez. Thereupon 
Andrew leads Rachel the blooming before a 
priest; and the priest blesses them, and names 
them man and wife. That autumn they are 
again at the widow Donelson's; but the bloom- 
ing Rachel, once Mrs. Robards, is now Mrs. 
Jackson. 

Slander is never the vice of a region that goes 
armed to the teeth. Thus it befalls that now, 
when the two are back on the Cumberland, 
those sophisticated ones forget to wink. There 
comes not so much as the arching of a brow; 
for no one is so careless of life as all that. The 
whole settlement can see that the dangerous An- 
drew is watching with those steel-blue eyes. 
53 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

At the first suggestion that his Rachel has been 
guilty of wrong, he will be at the throat of her 
maligner like a panther. 

Time flows on, and a horrible thing occurs. 
There comes a new word that no divorce was 
granted by that Legislature ; and this new word 
is indisputable. There is a divorce, one granted 
by a court; but, as an act of separation between 
Rachel the blooming and the drunken Robards, 
that decree of divorce is long months younger 
than the empowering act of the Richmond Leg- 
islature, which mistaken folk regarded as a 
divorce. The good priest's words, when he 
named our troubled two as man and wife, 
were ignorantly spoken. During months upon 
months thereafter, through all of which she was 
hailed as " Mrs. Jackson," the blooming Ra- 
chel was still the wife of the drunken Robards. 

The blow strikes Andrew gray; but he says 
never a word. He blames himself for this ship- 
wreck; where his Rachel was inv-olved, he should 
have made all sure and invited no chances. 

The injury Is done, however; he must now go 
about its repair. There is a second marriage, 
at which the silent Overton and the widow 
Donelson are the only witnesses, and for the 
second time a priest congratulates our storm- 
54 



THE WINNING OF A WIFE 

tossed ones as man and wife. This time there 
is no mistake. 

The young husband sends to Charleston ; and 
presently there come to him over the Blue Ridge, 
the finest pair of dueling pistols which the Cum- 
berland has ever beheld. They are Galway 
saw-handles, rifle-barreled; a breath discharges 
them, and they are sighted to the splitting of 
a hair. 

" What are they for? " asks Overton the taci- 
turn, balancing one in each experienced hand. 

In the eyes of Andrew gathers that steel-blue 
look of doom. " They are to kill the first vil- 
lain who speaks ill of my wife," says he. 



VI 
DEAD-SHOT DICKINSON 



CHAPTER VI 

DEAD-SHOT DICKINSON 

THE sandy-haired Andrew now devotes 
himself to the practice of law and the 
domestic virtues. In exercising the 
latter, he has the aid of the blooming Rachel, 
toward whom he carries himself with a tender 
chivalry that would have graced a Bayard. 
Having little of books, he is earnest for the edu- 
cation of others, and becomes a trustee of the 
Nashville Academy. 

About this time the good people of the Cum- 
berland, and of the regions round about, be- 
lieving they number more than seventy thousand 
souls, are seized of a hunger for statehood. 
They call a constitutional convention at Knox- 
ville, and Andrew attends as a delegate from 
his county of Davidson. Woolsack McNairy, 
his fellow student in the office of Spruce Mc- 
Cay, is also a delegate. The woolsack one has 
realized that dream of old Salisbury, and Is now 
a judge. 

59 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Andrew and woolsack McNalry are members 
of the committee which draws a constitution for 
the would-be commonwealth. The constitution, 
when framed, is brought by Its authors into 
open convention, and wranglingly adopted. 
Also, " Tennessee " Is settled upon for a name, 
albeit the ardent Andrew, who is nothing if not 
tribal, urges that of " Cumberland." 

The constitution goes, with the proposition of 
statehood, before Congress in Philadelphia; 
and, following a sharp fight, In which such fos- 
silized ones as Rufus King oppose and such 
quick spirits as Aaron Burr sustain, the admis- 
sion of " Tennessee," the new State Is created. 

Its hunting-shirt citizenry, well pleased with 
their successful step in nation building, elect 
Andrew to the House of Representatives. A 
little later, he Is taken from the House and sent 
to the Senate. There he meets with Mr. Jeffer- 
son, who Is the Senate's presiding officer, being 
vice-president of the nation, and that accurate 
parliamentarian and polished fine gentleman 
writes of him : 

" He never speaks on account of the rash- 
ness of his feelings. I have seen him attempt 
it repeatedly, but as often choke with rage." 

There also he encounters Aaron Burr; and 
60 



DEAD-SHOT DICKINSON 

is so far socially sagacious as to model his de- 
portment upon that of the American Chester- 
field, ironing out its backwoods wrinkles and 
savage creases, until it fits a salon as smoothly 
well as does the deportment of Burr himself. 
Our hero finds but one other man about Con- 
gress for whom he conceives a friendship equal 
to that which he feels for Aaron Burr, and he 
is Edward Livingston. 

Andrew the energetic discovers the life of a 
senator to be one of dawdling uselessness, over- 
long drawn out; and says so. He anticipates 
the acrid Randolph of Roanoke, and declares 
that he never winds his watch while in Congress, 
holding all time spent there as wasted and 
thrown away. 

Idleness rusts him; and, being of a temper 
even with that of best Toledo steel, he refuses 
to rust patiently. Preyed upon and carked of 
an exasperating leisure, which misfits both his 
years and his fierce temperament, he seeks refuge 
in what amusements are rife in Philadelphia. 
He goes to Mr. McElwee's Looking-glass 
Store, 70 South Fourth Street, and pays four bits 
for a ticket to the readings of Mr. Fennell, 
who gives him Goldsmith, Thompson and 
Young. The readings pall upon him, and, 
61 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

athirst for something more violent, he dinks 
down' a Mexican dollar, witnesses the horse- 
manship at Mr. Rickett's amphitheater, and 
finds it more to his horse-loving taste. When all 
else fails, he buys a seat in a box at the Old 
Theater in Cedar Street, and is entertained by 
the sleight of hand of wizard Signor Falconi. 
On the back of it all he grows heartily sick of 
the Senate, and of civilization, as the latter finds 
exposition in Philadelphia, and resigns his place 
and goes home. 

When he arrives in Nashville, the Legisla- 
ture — which still holds that he should be en- 
gaged upon some public work — elects him to 
the supreme bench. There he gets along more 
to his own comfort; for, besides being among 
the people he loves, he relieves the monotony of 
existence by a street fight with Governor John 
Sevier. The two meet in the causeways of 
Knoxvllle, empty their pistols at one another, 
and are both shamefully wide. 

The young Judge is also called from the 
bench to arrest that celebrated backwoods bully 
and cut-throat, Russell Bean, who with a pistol 
in one hand and a knife in the other is engaged, 
at the moment, in challenging a reluctant sheriff 
to a free fight. The young Judge covers the 

62 




Aaron Burr 

From a painting by J. Vandyke. 



DEAD-SHOT DICKINSON 

objectionable Mr. Bean with those Galway saw- 
handles ; and that violent person surrenders un- 
conditionally. In elucidating his sudden tame- 
ness and its causes, Mr. Bean subsequently ex- 
plains to a disgusted admirer: 

" I looks at the Jedge, an' I sees shoot in his 
eye; an' thar warn't shoot in nary 'nother eye 
in the crowd. So I says to myse'f, says I, * Old 
Hoss, it's about time to sing small ! ' An' 
I does." 

Notwithstanding those leaden exchanges with 
the Governor, and the conquest of the discreet 
Mr. Bean, our jurist finds the bench inexpres- 
sibly tedious. At last he resigns from It, as he 
did from the Senate, and again retreats to pri- 
vate life. 

Here his forethoughtful Scotch blood begins 
to assert itself, and he goes seriously to the mak- 
ing of money. With his one hundred and fifty 
slaves, he tills his plantation as no plantation 
on the Cumberland was ever tilled before; and 
the cotton crops he " makes " are at once the 
local boast and wonder. He starts an inland 
shipyard, and builds keel and flat boats for the 
river commerce with New Orleans. He opens 
a store, sells everything from gunpowder to 
quinine, broadcloth by the bolt to salt by the 

63 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

barrel, and takes his pay in the heterogeneous 
currency of the region, whereof 'coon skins are 
a smallest subsidiary coin. Also, it is now that 
he is made Major General of Militia, an honor 
for which he has privily panted, even as the 
worn hart panteth for the water brook. 

When he is a general, the blooming Rachel 
cuts and bastes and stitches a gorgeous uniform 
for her Bayard, in which labor of love she ex- 
hausts the Nashville supply of gold braid. 
Once the new General dons that effulgent uni- 
form, which he does upon the instant it is com- 
pleted, he offers a spectacle of such brilliancy 
that the bedazzled public talks facetiously of 
smoked glass. The new General in no wise re- 
sents this jest, being blandly tolerant of a back- 
woods sense of humor which suggests it. Be- 
sides, while the public has its joke, he has the 
uniform and his commission ; and these, he 
opines, give him vastly the better of the situa- 
tion. 

Many friends, many foes, says the Arab, 
and now the popular young General finds his 
path grown up of enemies. There be reasons 
for the sprouting of these malevolent gentry. 
The General is the idol of the people. He can 
call them about him as the huntsman calls his 
64 



DEAD-SHOT DICKINSON 

hounds. At word or sign from him, they fol- 
low and pull down whatsoever man or measure 
he points to as his quarry of politics. This does 
not match with the ambitions of many a pushing 
gentleman, who is quite as eager for popular 
preference, and — he thinks — quite as much en- 
titled to it, as is the General. 

These disgruntled ones, baffled in their politi- 
cal advancement by the General, take darkling 
counsel among themselves. The decision they 
arrive at is one gloomy enough. They cannot 
shake the General's hold upon the people. 
Nothing short of his death promises a least ray 
of relief. He is the sun ; while he lives he alone 
will occupy the popular heavens. His destruc- 
tion would mean the going down of that sun. 
In the night which followed, those lesser plot- 
ting luminaries might win for themselves some 
twinkling visibility. 

It is the springtime of the malevolent ones' 
conspiracy, and the plot they make begins to 
blossom for the bearing of Its lethal fruit. 
There is in Nashville one Charles Dickinson. 
By profession he is a lawyer, albeit of practice 
intermittent and scant. In figure he Is tall, 
handsome, graceful with a feline grace. If 
there be aught in the old Greek's theory touch- 
65 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

ing the transmigration of souls, then this Dick- 
inson was aforetime and In another life a tiger. 
He is sinuous, powerful, vain, narrowly cruel, 
with a sleek purring gloss of manner over all. 
Also, he Is of " good family" — that defense and 
final refuge of folk who would else sink from 
respectable sight in the mire of their own well- 
earned disrepute. 

Mr, Dickinson has one accomplishment, a 
physical one. So nicely does his eye match his 
hand, that he may boast himself the quickest, 
surest shot In all the world. Knowing his 
vanity, and the deadly certainty of his pistols, 
the conspirators work upon him. They point 
out that to kill the General under circumstances 
which men approve, will be an easy Instant step 
to greatness. Urged by his vanity, permitted 
by his cruelty, dead-shot Dickinson rises to the 
glittering lure. 

Give a man station and fortune, and while 
his courage Is not sapped his prudence is pro- 
moted. The poor, obscure man will risk him- 
self more readily than will the eminent rich one, 
not that he is braver, but he has less to lose. 
The General — who has been in both Houses of 
Congress, and was a judge on the bench besides 
— will not be hurried to the field, as readily as 

66 



DEAD-SHOT DICKINSON 

when he was merely Andrew the horse-faced. 
However, those malignant secret ones are in- 
genious. They know a name that cannot fail to 
set him ablaze for blood. They whisper that 
name to dead-shot Dickinson. 

It is a banner day at the Clover Bottom track. 
The General's Truxton is to run — that meteor 
among race horses, the mighty Truxton ! The 
blooming Rachel, seated in her carriage, is where 
she can view the finish. The General — one of 
the Clover Bottom stewards — is in the judge's 
stand. Dead-shot Dickinson, as the bell rings 
on the race, takes his stand at the blooming 
Rachel's carriage wheel. He is not there to 
see a race, but to plant an insult. 

" Go! " cries the starter. 

Away rushes the field, the flying Truxton in 
the lead! Around they whirl, the little jockeys 
plying hand and heel! They sweep by the 
three-quarters post! The great Truxton, eye 
afire, nostrils wide, comes down the stretch with 
the swiftness of the thrown lance ! Behind, ten 
generous lengths, trail the beaten ruck! The 
red mounts to the cheek of the blooming Rachel ; 
her black eyes shine with excitement ! She ap- 
plauds the invincible Truxton with her little 
hands. 

67 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

" He is running away with them ! " she cries. 

Dead-shot Dickinson turns to the friend who 
is conveniently by his side. The chance he waited 
for has come. 

" Running away with them! " he sneers, re- 
peating the phrase of the blooming Rachel. 
" To be sure ! He takes after his master, who 
ran away with another man's wife." 



VII 
HOW THE GENERAL FOUGHT 



CHAPTER VII 

HOW THE GENERAL FOUGHT 

THE General seeks the taciturn Over- 
ton — that wordless one of the uneasy 
hair triggers. 

*' It is a plot," says the General. "And yet 
this man shall die." 

Hair-trigger Overton bears a challenge to 
dead-shot Dickinson, and is referred to that 
marksman's second, Hanson Catlet. Hair-trig- 
ger Overton and Mr. Catlet agree on Harrison's 
Mills, a long day's ride away in Kentucky. 
There are laws against dueling in Tennessee; 
wherefore her citizens, when bent on blood, 
repair to Kentucky. To make all equal, and 
owning similar laws, the Kentuckians, when 
blood hungry, take one another to Tennessee. 
The arrangement is both perfect and polite, 
not to say urbane, and does much to induce 
friendly relations between these sister common- 
wealths. 

6 71 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Place selected, Mr. Catlet insists upon putting 
off the fight for a week. His principal Is noth- 
ing if not artistic. He must send across the 
Blue Ridge Mountains for a famous brace of 
pistols. His duel with the General will have 
its page in history. He insists, therefore, upon 
making every nice arrangement to attract the 
admiration of posterity. He will kill the Gen- 
eral, of course; and, by way of emphasizing his 
gallantry, offers wagers to that effect. He bets 
three thousand dollars that he will kill the Gen- 
eral the first fire. 

The General makes no wagers, but holds long 
pow-wows with hair-trigger Overton over their 
glasses and pipes. The fight is to be at twelve 
paces, each man toeing a peg. The word agreed 
on is : "Fire — one — two — three — stop ! '* 
Both are free to kill after the word " Fire," 
and before the word " Stop." 

Hair-trigger Overton and the General give 
themselves up to a heartfelt study of what ad- 
vantages and disadvantages are presented by the 
situation. They decide to let the gifted Dick- 
inson shoot first. Lie 'S so quick that the Gen- 
eral cannot hope to forestall his fire. Also, any 
undue haste on the General's part might spoil 
his aim. By the pros and cons of it, as weighed 
72 



THE GENERAL FOUGHT 

between them, It is plain that the General must 
receive the fire of dead-shot Dickinson. He 
will be hit; doubtless the wound will bring 
death. He must, however, bend every Iron 
energy to the task of standing on his feet long 
enough to kill his adversary. 

"Fear not! I'll last the time!" says the 
General. " He shall go with me; for Tve set 
my heart on his blood." 

Those wonderful pistols come over the Blue 
Ridge, and dead-shot Dickinson with his friends 
set out for that far-away Kentucky fighting 
ground. They make gala of the business, and 
laugh and joke as they ride along. By way 
of keeping his hand In, and to give the con- 
fidence of his admirers a wire edge, dead-shot 
Dickinson unbends In sinister exhibitions of his 
pistol skill. At a farmer's house a gourd Is 
hanging by a string from the bough of a tree. 
Dead-shot Dickinson, at twenty paces, cuts the 
string; the gourd falls to the ground. 

" Some gentlemen will be along presently," 
he says. " Show them that string, and tell them 
how it was cut." 

At a wayside Inn he puts four bullets Into a 
mark the size of a silver dollar. 

" When General Jackson arrives," he ob- 

73 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

serves, tossing a gold piece to the innkeeper, 
" say that those shots were fired at twenty-four 
paces." 

And so with song and shout and jest and 
pistol firing, the Dickinson party troop forward. 
They arrive in the early evening and put up 
at Harrison's tavern. The fight is for seven 
o'clock in the morning. 

Behind this gay cavalcade are journeying the 
General and hair-trigger Overton. The farmer 
repeats the story of the gourd and its bullet- 
broken string. A bit farther, and the innkeeper 
calls attention to that quartette of shots, which 
took effect within the little circumference of a 
dollar piece. The stern pair behold these mar- 
vels unmoved; hair-trigger Overton merely 
shrugs his shoulders, while the General's lip 
curls contemptuously. Dead-shot Dickinson has 
thrown away his lead and powder if he hoped to 
shake these men of granite. Upon coming to 
the battle ground, the General and hair-trigger 
Overton avoid the Harrison tavern, which shel- 
ters the jovial Dickinson coterie, and put up at 
the inn of David Miller. That evening, they 
hold their final conference in a cloud of tobacco 
smoke, like a couple of Indians. Finally, the 
General goes to bed, and sleeps like a tree. 

74 



i 



THE GENERAL FOUGHT 

With the first blue streaks of morning our 
two war parties are up and moving. They meet 
In a convenient grove of poplars. The ground 
is stepped off and pegged; after which hair- 
trigger Overton and Mr. Catlet pitch a coin. 
The impartial coin awards the choice of posi- 
tions to Mr. Catlet, and gives the word to hair- 
trigger Overton. There is a third toss which 
settles that the weapons are to be those Galway 
saw-handles. At this good fortune a steel-blue 
point of fire shows in the satisfied eye of the 
General. He recalls how he procured those 
weapons to kill the first man who spoke evil of 
the blooming Rachel, and is pleased to think a 
benignant destiny will not permit them to be 
robbed of that original right. 

The men are led to their respective pegs by 
Mr. Catlet and hair-trigger Overton. The 
General, through the experienced strategy of 
hair-trigger Overton, wears a black coat — high 
of collar, long of skirt. It buttons close to the 
chin; not a least glimpse of bullet-guiding white, 
whether of shirt collar or cravat, is allowed to 
show. The black coat is purposely voluminous ; 
and the whereabouts of the General's lean 
frame, tucked away in its folds, is a question 
not readily replied to. The only mark on the 

75 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

whole sable expanse of that coat is a row of 
steel-bright buttons. These are not in the mid- 
dle, but peculiarly to one side. Those steel- 
bright buttons will draw the fire of dead-shot 
Dickinson like a magnet. Which is precisely 
what hair-trigger Overton had in mind. 

As the two stand at the pegs, dead-shot Dick- 
inson calls loudly to a friend : 

"Watch that third button! It's over the 
heart! I shall hit him there! " 

The grim General says nothing; but the look 
on his gaunt face reads like a page torn from 
some book of doom. As he stands waiting the 
word, he is observ^ed by the watchful Ov^erton 
to slip something into his mouth. Then his 
jaws set themselves like flint. 

" Gentlemen, are you ready? " 

They are ready, dead-shot Dickinson cruelly 
eager, the somber General adamant. There is 
a soundless moment, still as death: 

"Fire!" 

Instantly, like a flash of lightning, the pistol 
of dead-shot Dickinson explodes. That objec- 
tive third button disappears, driven in by the 
vengeful lead ! The General rocks a little on 
his feet with the awful shock of it; then he 
plants himself as moveless as an oak. Through 

76 



THE GENERAL FOUGHT 

the curling smoke dead-shot Dickinson makes 
out the stark, upstanding form. For a moment 
it is as though he were planet-struck. He 
shrinks shudderingly from his peg. 

"God!" he whispers; "have I missed 
him?" 

Hair-trigger Overton cocks the pistol he holds 
in his hand and covers the horror-smitten 
Dickinson. 

" Back to your mark, sir! " he roars. 

Dead-shot Dickinson steps up to his peg, his 
cheek the hue of ashes. He reads his sentence 
In those implacable steel-blue eyes, and the death 
nearness touches his heart like ice. 

" One ! " says hair-trigger Overton. 

At the word, there is a sharp " klick ! " The 
General has pulled the trigger, but the hammer 
catches at half cock. The General's inveterate 
steel-blue glance never for one moment leaves 
his man. He recocks the weapon with a re- 
sounding " kluck! " 

" Two ! " says hair-trigger Overton. 

"Bang!" 

There comes the flash and roar, and dead-shot 
Dickinson is seen to stagger. He totters, stum- 
bles slowly forward, and falls all along on his 
face. The bullet has bored through his body. 
77 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

The General stays by his peg — cold and hard 
and stern. Hair-trigger Overton approaches 
the wounded Dickinson. One glance is enough. 
He crosses to the General and takes his arm. 

" Come ! " he says. " There is nothing more 
to do!" 

Hair-trigger Overton leads the General back 
to their inn. As the pair journey through the 
poplar wood, he asks : 

" What was that you put In your mouth? " 

"It was a bullet," returns the General; "I 
placed it between my teeth. By setting my jaws 
firmly upon it I make my hand as steady as a 
church." 

As the General says this, he gives that steady- 
ing pellet of lead to hair-trigger Overton, who 
looks it over curiously. It has been crushed 
between the clenched teeth of the General until 
now it is as flat and thin as a two-bit piece. As 
the two approach the tavern they come upon 
a negress churning butter, and the General 
pauses to drink a quart of milk. 

Once in his room, hair-trigger Overton pulls 
off the General's boot, which is full of blood. 

" Not there ! " says the General. " His bul- 
let found me here"; and he throws open the 
black coat. 

78 



THE GENERAL FOUGHT 

Dead-shot Dickinson's aim was better than 
his surmise. He struck that indicated third 
button; but, thanks to the strategy of hair- 
trigger Overton which prompted the voluminous 
coat, the button did not cover the General's 
heart. The deceived bullet has only broken 
two ribs and grazed the breastbone. 

The surgeon Is called; the wound Is dressed 
and bandaged. He describes jt as serious, and 
shakes his head. 

*' Still," he observes, " you are more fortunate 
than Mr. Dickinson. He cannot live an hour." 

As the man of probe and forceps Is about to 
retire the General detains him. 

" You are not to speak of my wound until 
we are back In Nashville." 

He of the probe and forceps bows assent. 
When he has left the room hair-trigger Over- 
ton asks: 

"What was that for?" 

The brow of the General grows cloudy with 
a reminiscent war frown. 

" Have you forgotten those four shots Inside 
the circle of a dollar, and that bullet-severed 
string? I want the braggart to die thinking 
he has missed a man at twelve paces." 

The two light pipes and hair-trigger Overton 
79 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

sends for his whisky. Once it has come he 
gives the General a stiff four fingers, and under 
the fiery spell of the liquor the color struggles 
into the pale hollow of his cheek. 

He of the probe* and forceps comes to the 
door. 

" Gentlemen," he says, palms outward with 
a sort of deprecatory gesture — " gentlemen, 
Mr. Dickinson is dead." 

The General knocks the ashes from his pipe. 
Then he crosses to the open window and looks 
out into the May sunshine. From over near 
the poplar wood drifts up the liquid whistle of 
a quail. Presently he returns to his seat and 
begins refilling his pipe. 

" It speaks worlds for your will power, that 
you should have kept your feet after being hit 
so hard. Not one in ten thousand could have 
held himself together while he made that shot ! " 

This is a marvelous burst of loquacity for 
hair-triggef Overton, who deals out words as 
some men deal out ducats. 

" I was thinking on her, whom his slanderous 
tongue had hurt. I should have stood there till 
I killed him, though he had shot me through 
the heart ! " 



VIII 

ENGLAND AND GRIM-VISAGED 
WAR 



CHAPTER VIII 

ENGLAND AND GRIM-VISAGED WAR 

THE saw-handles are cleaned and oiled 
and laid away to that repose which 
they have won. No more will they 
be summoned to defend the blooming Rachel. 
No one now speaks evil of her; for that tragedy 
which reddened a May Kentucky morning has 
sealed the lips of slander. The General does 
not speak of that battle at twelve paces in the 
poplar wood; and yet the blooming Rachel 
knows. She, like her lover-husband, never re- 
fers to it; but her worship of him finds multi- 
plication, while he, towards her, grows more and 
more the Bayard. Much are they revered and 
looked up to along the Cumberland, he for his 
gentle loyalty, she for her love ; and the common 
tongue is tireless in reciting the story of their 
perfect happiness. 

The currents of time roll on and the General 
Is busy with his planting, his storekeeping, and 

83 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

his boat building. He is fortunate; and the 
three-sided profits pile themselves into moderate 
riches. In the midst of his prosperity he is 
visited by Aaron Burr. The late vice-president 
has killed Alexander Hamilton — a name de- 
spised along the Cumberland. Also he was 
aforetime the champion of Tennessee, when she 
asked the boon of statehood. 

For these sundry matters, as well as for what 
good unconscious lessons in deportment were 
taught him by the courtly Colonel Burr, the 
General fails not to take that polished exile to 
his heart and to his hearth. Colonel Burr is 
in and out of Nashville many times. He comes 
and goes and comes and goes and comes again; 
and writes his daughter Theodosia : 

" I am housed with General Jackson, who is 
one of those prompt, frank, loyal souls whom 
I like." 

Colonel Burr has been in France, and tells 
the General of Napoleon. He draws a battle 
map of Quebec, shows where Montgomery 
fell, arid relates how he, Colonel Burr, bore that 
dead chieftain from the field. In the end, he 
gives a dim outline of his dreams for the con- 
quest of that Spanish America, lying on the 
thither side of the Mississippi; and to these lat- 

84 



ENGLAND AND WAR 

ter tales of empire the General lends eager 
ear. 

By the General's suggestion a dinner Is given 
at the Nashville Inn In honor of Colonel Burr. 
The General presides, and, with a heart full of 
anger against Barbary pirates, offers among 
others the toast: 

" Millions for defense, but not one cent for 
tribute ! " 

Colonel Burr, being dined, confides to the 
General how he Is not without an ally In the 
Southwest, and says that Commander Wilkin- 
son, In control for the Government at New 
Orleans, stands ready to advance his antl-Spanlsh 
projects. At the name of " Wilkinson " the 
General shakes his prudent head. He declares 
that Commander Wilkinson Is a faithless, caitiff 
creature, with a brandlfied nose, a coward 
heart, and a weakness for breaking his word. 
The crafty Burr, confident to vanity of his own 
genius for Intrigue, Insists that he can trust 
Commander Wilkinson. Then he arranges with 
the General for the building of a flotilla of flat- 
boats at the latter's yards, and goes his schem- 
ing way. Later, when Colonel Burr Is on trial 
for treason In Richmond, the General will ride 
over the Blue Ridge to give him aid and comfort, 

85 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

and make street-corner speeches defending him, 
wherein he will say things more explicit than 
flattering concerning President Jefferson, who is 
urging the prosecution of Colonel Burr. 

The hours, never resting, never sleeping, 
march onward with our planter-General, until 
the procession in its passing is remembered and 
spoken of as years. Then comes the war with 
England. That saber scar on the General's head 
begins to throb, and he sends word to Washing- 
ton that he is ready, with twenty-five hundred of 
his hunting-shirt militia, to kill British wher- 
ever they shall be found. 

The Government thanks him, and orders him 
with his hunting-shirt followers to report to 
General Wilkinson at New Orleans. The Gen- 
eral does not like this, the Wilkinson in ques- 
tion being that red-nosed renegade one, against 
whom long ago he warned the ambitious Colonel 
Burr. For all that, orders are orders; and be- 
sides a fight under any commander is not to be 
despised. The General presently hurries his 
hunting-shirt forces aboard flatboats, and floats 
away on the convenient bosom of the Cumber- 
land. He will go down that stream to the 
Ohio, and so to the Mississippi and to New 
Orleans. As they float downward with the 
86 



ENGLAND AND WAR 

stream, the General recalls a former voyage 
when love and the blooming Rachel were his 
companions, and is heard to sigh. 

At Natchez, word from Commander Wilkin- 
son meets the General. He is told to land, and 
wait for further orders. The General takes his 
boys of the hunting shirts ashore, and pitches 
camp. Privily he unbends in oaths and male- 
dictions, all addressed to the ex-grocer Wilkin- 
son; for he thinks the order, preventing his 
entrance Into New Orleans, born of the mean 
rivalry of that red-nosed ignobility. 

The General waits, and curses Commander 
Wilkinson, for divers weeks. Then occurs one 
of those imbecilities, of which only the witless- 
ness of Government is capable, and whereof the 
archives at Washington carry so many examples. 
The General receives a curt dispatch from the 
war secretary, " dismissing " him and his hunt- 
ing-shirt soldiers from the service of the United 
States. Not a word is said as to pay, or pro- 
vision for returning to the Cumberland. Hav- 
ing gotter^^ the General and his little army sev- 
eral hundred wilderness miles from home, the 
thick-head Government, with no intelligence and 
as little heart, coolly reduces him and them to 
the practical status of vagrants; which feat ac- 
7 87 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

complished, It walks away, as it were, hands in 
pockets, whistling " Yankee Doodle." Possibly, 
the Government thinks that the General and his 
hunting-shirt friends can float upstream as they 
floated down. The angry General, however, 
makes no such marine mistake, and the Intricate 
oaths which he now evolves and fulminates, as 
expressive of his feelings, would have won the 
admiration of any army that ever fought in 
Flanders. 

The General's credit is golden, since he has 
ever been a fanatic about paying debts. Invok- 
ing that credit, he cashes a handful of drafts, 
and marches home with his hunting-shirt contin- 
gent at his own expense. Also he Indites a letter 
to that war secretary which reddens the latter's 
departmental ears, and causes his departmental 
head to buzz like a nest of hornets. Later, the 
Government pays the General the amount of 
those drafts; not because it is right — since the 
argument of right has little Washington weight 
— but for the far more moving reason that Ten- 
nessee, in a rage, Is preparing to desert the bone- 
less President Madison for the Federalists. It 
is the latter thought which brings a ray of com- 
mon sense to the besotted Government, and his 
money to our General, now back in Tennessee. 

88 



ENGLAND AND WAR 

The bellicose General is vastly disappointed 
at missing a brush with invading British; for, 
aside from a saber-engrafted hatred of all Eng- 
lish things and men, he is one to dote on fighting 
for fighting's crimson sake, and is almost as well 
pleased with mere battle as with victory. How- 
ever, he is given scanty room for sorrowful re- 
flections, since fate is hurrying to his relief with 
a private war of his own. 

The General, ever an expositor of the duello, 
and the peaceful hours resting heavy on his 
hands, goes out as second for a Captain Carroll 
against Mr. Jesse Benton. Captain Carroll is 
shot in the toe, and Mr. Benton in the leg; 
whereat the General and the Cumberland pub- 
lic groan over results so inadequate. 

Being thus shot in the leg, Mr. Benton dis- 
plays his bad taste by falling into a fury with the 
General. He recounts what he regards as his 
" wrongs " to his brother Thomas, and that in- 
temperate Individual loses no time in taking up 
his brother's quarrel. The pair say things of 
the General which would arouse the wrath of 
an image; with that, the General calls for his 
saw-handles, and begins to plan trouble for those 
verbally reckless Bentons. 

The General takes with him as guide, phi- 
89 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

losopher and friend, his faithful subaltern, 
Colonel Coffee. The two establish themselves, 
strategically, at the Nashville Inn. 

Across the corner of the public square upon 
which the Nashville Inn finds hospitable front- 
age, stands the City Hotel. Sunning themselves 
in the veranda of the latter caravansary, but 
with war written upon their angry visages, the 
General and the faithful Coffee perceive the 
brothers Benton. The enemies glare at one an- 
other, and the General says to Colonel Coffee 
that they will now go to the post office. Since 
a trip to the post office is calculated to bring 
them within touching distance of the brothers 
Benton, Colonel Coffee at once discerns the pro- 
priety of such a journey. 

The pair go to the post office, staring haught- 
ily at the brothers Benton as they pass. The 
brothers Benton, for their side, being apoplec- 
tic of habit, grow black in the face with rage. 

Having visited the post office, and being now 
upon their return, the General and Colonel 
Coffee again draw near the apoplectic Bentons, 
glowering from their veranda. When within 
three feet of them, the General abruptly whips 
out one of those celebrated saw-handles, and 
jams its muzzle against the horrified stomach of 

90 



ENGLAND AND WAR 

brother Thomas Benton. That imperiled per- 
sonage thereupon backs rapidly away from the 
saw-handle, which as rapidly follows; while the 
public, assembling on the run, confidently ex- 
pects the General to shoot brother Thomas Ben- 
ton in two. 

The General might have done so, and thus 
gratified the public, but the unexpected occurs. 
As brother Thomas Benton backs briskly from 
the muzzle of the saw-handle, brother Jesse, 
who is not wanting in a genius for decision, 
whirls, and from a huge horse pistol plants two 
balls in the General's left shoulder. As the war- 
rior goes down. Colonel Coffee empties his pistol 
at brother Thomas, who avoids having his head 
blown off only by the fortunate fact of a cellar, 
into whose receptive depths he tumbles, just in 
what novelists call " the nick of time." As 
brother Thomas lapses into the cellar, young 
Hays, a nephew of the blooming Rachel, hurls 
brother Jesse to the floor, to which he makes 
heartfelt attempts to pin him with a dirk, but 
is baffled by the activity of the restless brother 
Jesse, who will not lie still to be pinned. 

The whole riot has not covered the space of 
sixty seconds, when the public, suddenly con- 
ceiving its duty to lie in that direction, seizes 

91 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

young Hays, releases the recumbent brother 
Jesse, disarms Colonel Coffee, fishes brother 
Thomas out of that receptive cellar, and carries 
the badly wounded General to a bed in the 
Nashville Inn. The City Hotel mentions its 
own beds, and lays claim to the injured General, 
on the argument that the battle has been fought 
in its bar. The claim is disallowed and the 
General conveyed to the rival hostelry afore- 
said, as being peculiarly his own proper inn, 
since it is there he has ever repaired for bil- 
liards, mint juleps, and to hold conferences over 
pipe and glass with his friends. 

Once in bed, the local surgeons burst in and 
offer to cut off the General's arm. The offer 
is declined fiercely and a poultice of slippery- 
elm bark is substituted for that proposed sur- 
gery. This latter medicament works wonders; 
under its soothing influences, and the revivify- 
ing effects of whisky — both being remedies much 
in vogue along the Cumberland — the General 
begins to mend. 

The General, the patient object of a deal of 
slippery-elm bark and whisky — the one applied 
externally and the other internally — lies in bed 
a month. Then the awful word arrives of the 
massacre at Fort Mims. Five hundred and 
92 



ENGLAND AND WAR 

fifty-three souls have been slaughtered, and 
Chief Weathersford with all his Creeks, valor 
sharpened by English gold and English fire- 
water, is reported on the warpath. The news 
brings the General out of bed in a moment. 
His friends remonstrate, the doctors command, -)k 
the blooming Rachel pleads; but he puts them 
aside. Gaunt of cheek, face paper-white with 
weakness, left arm in a sling, he climbs painfully 
into the saddle and takes command. 

The General sends Colonel Coffee and his 
mounted riflemen to the fore, with orders to 
wait for him at Fayettesville. Meanwhile, he 
himself lingers briefly to enroll and organize 
his little army. A few weeks later he follows 
the doughty Coffee, and the entire command — 
horns full of powder, pouches heavy with bul- 
lets, hunting knives whetted to a razor edge — 
moves southward after hostile Creeks. 



IX 

THE GENERAL AT THE 
HORSESHOE 



CHAPTER IX 

THE GENERAL AT THE HORSESHOE 

THE General goes to Fayettesvllle, and 
orders Colonel Coffee with his eager 
five hundred to Huntsville, as a point 
nearer the heart of savage war. Volunteers, 
each bringing his own rifle and riding his own 
horse, join Colonel Coffee, who sends back in- 
spiring word that his five hundred have grown 
to thirteen hundred, all thirsting for Creek 
blood. Meanwhile, the General, weak and worn 
to a shadow, can hardly keep the saddle, and 
must be bathed hourly in whisky to hold soul and 
body together. Unable to eat, he lives by his 
will alone. The shot-shattered left arm, lest 
he faint with the awful agony which attends 
its least disturbance, is bound tightly to his side. 
The General takes the field, and presently 
comes up with the Creeks. He smites them hip 
and thigh at Tallushatches, Talladega, and di- 
vers other places of equally complicated names, 

97 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

slaying hundreds while losing few himself. The 
Creeks give way before the invincible General. 
Wherever he goes they scatter hke an affrighted 
flock of blackbirds. 

The Indian is terrible only when he is win- 
ning. He is not upholstered, whether mentally 
or morally, for an uphill, losing war. The 
General would like it better if this were other- 
wise. Could he but coax his evanescent enemy 
into a pitched battle, he would break both his 
heart and his power with one and the same 
blow. 

Chief Weathersford is as well aware of this 
defect in the Indian make-up as is the General. 
He himself is half white, and knows what points 
of strength and weakness belong with either 
race. Wherefore, when now his Creeks have 
been beaten, and their hearts are low in defeat, 
he makes no effort to lead them against the 
General's front; but breaks them into squads 
and little bands, with directions to harass the 
hunting-shirt men and hang about their flanks 
in the name of flea-bite annoyance and isolated 
scalps. Thus is the General plagued and fa- 
tigued nigh unto death, without once being able 
to lay hand upon those skulking, hiding, flying 
foot-Parthians against whom he has come forth. 
98 



AT THE HORSESHOE 

Also, he and his hunting-shirt men are getting 
farther and farther from anything that might be 
termed a base of supplies. At last, many a 
pathless mile through wood and swamp, and 
many an unbridged river, lie between the near- 
est barrel of flour and their stomachs clamor- 
ous for food. 

The military stomach is the first great base 
of every military operation. The war-wise 
Frederick had it for his aphorism, that an army 
is so much like a snake it can move forward 
only on its belly. The General is made pain- 
fully aware of this truism when he and his 
hunting-shirt men find themselves penned up 
with starvation at Fort Strother. In the teeth 
of his troubles, however, he makes shift to send 
home an orphaned papoose for the blooming 
Rachel to raise. 

Famine takes command at Fort Strother, and 
the General writes : " He is an enemy I dread 
more than hostile Creeks — I mean the meager 
monster. Famine ! " There is murmuring 
among the hunting-shirt men, who have, with 
the appetite common to bordermen, that con- 
tempt of discipline which belongs to their rude 
caste. They are reduced to roots and berries, 
with an occasional pigeon or squirrel, which lat- 

99 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

ter diminutive deer no one waits to cook, but 
devours raw. One day a backwoods boy, 
whose appetite is even with his effrontery, way- 
lays the General on his rounds and demands 
food. 

" Here is what I was saving for supper," 
says the General; " you may have that." And 
he tosses the hungry one a double handful of 
acorns. 

The starving hunting-shirt men mutiny; they 
draw themselves up preparatory to marching 
north, to find that home-fatness which waits for 
them on the Cumberland. At this the General 
changes his manner. Heretofore he has been 
the symbol of fatherly sympathy and toleration. 
He can make excuses for the grumbling of hun- 
gry men, and makes them. But this goes be- 
yond grumbling, which, when all is in, comes to 
be no more than a healthful blowing off of angry 
steam ; this is desertion by wholesale. 

As the lean-flanked, rancorous ones line up 
to begin their homeward march, the General, 
haggard and emaciated by those Benton wounds 
and a want of food, rides out in front. Halt- 
ing forty yards from the foremost mutineers, he 
swings from the saddle. In his right hand he 
carries a long eight-square rifle. This, since he 

lOO 



AT THE HORSESHOE 

has no left hand to support his aim, he runs 
across the empty saddle. Being ready, he calls 
on the hunting-shirt men to give the order to 
march, if they dare. 

" For by the Eternal," says he, " I'll shoot 
down the first of you who takes a forward 
step!" • 

The sulky, hungry hunting-shirt men scowl 
at the General. He scowls back at them, with 
the wicked ferocity of a tiger and an iron de- 
termination not to be revoked. And thus they 
stand glaring — one against hundreds ! Then the 
courage of the hungry hundreds oozes away, 
and they fall back before that menacing appa- 
rition which glowers at them along the rifle 
barrel. They melt away by the rear, those hunt- 
ing-shirt men, and lurk off to their quarters — 
ashamed of their weakness, yet afraid to go on. 

At last, a herd of beef, quite as gaunt as the 
starved hunting-shirt men themselves, arrives. 
Fires are set going and knives drawn. There 
is a measureless eating. Belts are let out to the 
full-fed holes of other days; mutiny, like an evil 
spirit, takes its flight. The gorged hunting- 
shirt men, as though in amends for their scowl- 
ings and mutinous grumblings, beg to be led in- 
stantly against the Creeks. This the General 

lOI 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

is very willing to do, since he suspects the 
Creeks of possessing corn. 

The General's scouts tell him that the scat- 
tered Creeks are collecting in force at the Horse- 
shoe. Upon this news, one bright morning the 
General rides out of Fort Strother, and his re- 
cuperated hunting-shirt men, two thousand 
strong, are at his back. 

The Horseshoe is a loop-like bend in the 
Tallapoosa, which incloses a round one hundred 
heavily-timbered acres. Across the open end, 
three hundred and fifty yards wide, the British 
engineers have taught the Creeks to throw up a 
fortification of logs. Behind this bulwark is 
gathered the fighting flower of the Creeks, more 
than one thousand warriors in all. 

Arriving in front of the log bulwark, the 
General, with the experienced Coffee, pushes 
forward to reconnoiter. 

" We can thank the British for that," says the 
General, tossing his Indignant right hand to- 
ward the Creek defenses. " Billy Weathers- 
ford, even with the half-white blood that's in 
him, would never have designed It." 

The astute Coffee makes a suggestion and, 
acting on it, the General dispatches him by a 
roundabout march to take the Creeks from be- 

I02 



AT THE HORSESHOE 

hind. The fatuous savages flatter themselves 
that the wide-flowing Tallapoosa will defend 
their rear. All they need do, they think, is He 
behind those English-log breastworks and knock 
over whatever obnoxious paleface shows his 
head. This Is an admirable programme, and 
comforting to the cockles of the aboriginal 
heart. There is but one trouble; it won't 
work. 

As the circuitous Coffee begins to swing wide 
for his stealthy creep to the rear, the General 
covers the strategy with a brace of brawling 
nine-pounders. Inside the log breastworks, he 
hears the "tunk! tunk!" of the "medicine" 
drum, and the measured chant of the prophets 
promising victory. In the midst of the pro- 
phetic chantings and the dull thumping of the 
tomtoms, the nine-pounders roar and bury their 
shot in the log breastworks. The shot do no 
harm, and serve but to excite the ribald mirth 
of the Creeks. The latter can speak enough 
English for the purposes of insult, and scoff and 
jeer at the General, whom they describe — hav- 
ing in mind his lean form — as a lance shaft, 
harmless, because wanting a keen head. They 
storm at him with opprobrious epithet, and in- 
vite him, unless he be a coward, to come to them 
8 103 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

over their breastworks. The General pays no 
heed to the contumely of the Creeks; he Is bend- 
ing his ear to catch, above the din of his nine- 
pounders, the earliest signal of the redoubtable 
Coffee's attack. 

Colonel Coffee and his riflemen, horses at a 
walk, pick their difficult way through the woods. 
It is a matter of no little time before they find 
themselves at the toe of the Horseshoe, and in 
the ignorant rear of the Creeks. Between them 
and those one hundred tree-grown acres held by 
the enemy flows the Tallapoosa — turbid, wide 
and deep. Across, they see the canoes, which 
the stupidity of the Creeks has left without so 
much as a squaw or a papoose to guard t^em. 
In a moment, a score have thrown off their hunt- 
ing shirts, and are in the river. They swim like 
so many Newfoundlands, and come out drip- 
ping, but happy, on the farther side. Presently 
each of the swimming score is upon his return 
trip, towing a dozen of the largest canoes. 

Leaving a horse guard to look after the 
mounts. Colonel Coffee embarks his command 
in the canoes; ten minutes later, the last light- 
ing man jack of them is on the other side. 
They hear the boom of the nine-pounders, and 
the yells and war shouts of the Creeks. Also 
104 



AT THE HORSESHOE 

they discover the wickiups of the Creeks, hid- 
den away, with their squaws and papooses, in a 
thickety corner of the wood. 

Colonel Coffee, who, for all he is a back- 
woodsman, is not without certain sparks and 
spunks of military skill, sets fire to the wicki- 
ups, as an excellent sure method of wringing 
the withers and distracting the attention of the 
fighting Creeks at the front. The flames go 
crackling skyward; the squaws and papooses 
rush yelling from the slight houses of wattled 
willow twigs and bark, and scuttle into the un- 
derbrush like rabbits. Unlike rabbits, being in 
the underbrush, they set up such a dismal tem- 
pest of howls, that those rearmost Creeks who 
hear it come running to learn what disaster has 
seized upon their households. 

Before they can make extensive Inquiry, Colo- 
nel Coffee and his riflemen open on them with 
a storm of bullets; and next, each man takes a 
tree. The war now proceeds Creek fashion, 
every man — white and red — fighting for him- 
self. There Is a difference, however; for while 
the hunting-shirt men are dead shots, the Creeks 
prove themselves such wretchedly bad marks- 
men — not understanding a rear sight, which ar- 
ticle of gun furniture Is a mystery to the Indian 
105 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

mind even unto this day — as to provoke a deal 
of hunting-shirt laughter. 

Slowly but surely the Creeks give way be- 
fore that low-flying sleet of lead. As they give 
way, running from one tree to another, their 
hunting-shirt foe presses forward — as deadly a 
skirmish line as ever commander threw out! 

The quick ear of the General catches the fir- 
ing down at the toe of the Horseshoe. It tells 
him that Colonel Coffee is busy with the Creek 
rear. Also, he gets a far-off glimpse, through 
the trees, of the smoke and flames from those 
burning wickiups, and understands the message 
of them. 

Drawing off the futile nine-pounders, the 
General orders a charge, the amateur artiller- 
ists taking up their rifles with the others. At 
the word, the hunting-shirt men rush forward, 
and go over the log breastworks like cats. 

The one earliest to scale the breastworks — 
quick as a panther, strong as a bear — is Ensign 
Sam Houston. The Southwest will hear more 
of him before all is done. That lively youth, 
however, is not thinking of the future; for an 
arrow, excessively of the present, has just 
pierced his thigh, and is demanding his whole 
attention. Shutting his teeth like a trap to con- 
io6 



AT THE HORSESHOE 

trol the pain, he snaps the shaft and draws the 
arrow from the wound. A moment later, the 
surgeon bandages it. 

The General is standing near, and waxes con- 
servative touching Ensign Sam Houston. 

"Don't go back!" comr. .ands the General 
shortly. " That arrow through your leg should 
be enough." 

Ensign Sam Houston says nothing, but the 
moment his commander's back is turned rushes 
headlong over those log breastworks again. 
Later he is picked up with two bullets in him, 
which serve to keep him quiet for nigh a fort- 
night. 

Once the hunting-shirt men are across the 
log breastworks, a slow and painstaking killing 
ensues. Not a Creek asks quarter; not a Creek 
accepts it when tendered. It is to be a fight to 
the death — a fight unsparing, relentless, grim ! \ 

"Remember Fort Mims!" shout the hunt- 
ing-shirt men, working away with rifle and axe 
and knife. 

The Creeks, caught between the General and 
Colonel Coffee, hide in clumps of bushes or be- 
hind logs. From these slight coverts, the hunt- 
ing-shirt men flush them, as setters flush birds, 
and shoot them as they fly. Once a Creek Is 
107 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

down, out flashes the ready hunting knife and 
a Creek scalp Is torn off; for the huntlng-shirt 
men, on a principle that fights Satan with 
fire, have adopted the war habits of their red 
enemy. 

The huntlng-shirt men range up and down, 
quartering those one hundred acres of Horse- 
shoe wood like hounds, killing out In all direc- 
tions. Now and then a warrior, sorely crowded, 
leaps Into the Tallapoosa, and strikes forth for 
the opposite shore. His feather-tufted head is 
seen bobbing on the muddy surface of the river. 
To gentlemen who, offhand, make nothing of 
a turkey's head at one hundred yards, those 
brown bobbing feather-tufted Creek heads are 
child's play. A rifle cracks; the shot-pierced 
Creek springs clear of the water with a death 
yell, and then goes bubbling to the bottom. 
Sometimes two rifles crack; in which double 
event the Creek takes with him to the bottom 
two bullets Instead of one. 

The slaughter moves forward slowly, but 
satisfactorily, for hours. It is ten o'clock in the 
night when the last Creek Is killed, and the 
hunting-shirt men, hungry with a hard day's 
work, may think on supper. Of the red one 
thousand and more who manned those British- 
io8 




u 



AT THE HORSESHOE 

built fortifications in the morning, not two-score 
get away. It is the Creek Thermopylae. 

The General's triumph at the Horseshoe puts 
the last paragraph to the last chapter of the 
Creek wars. Also, it disappoints certain Eng- 
lish prospects, and defeats for all time those 
savage hopes of a general race battle against the 
paleface, the fires of which the dead Tecumseh 
so long supported by his eloquence and fed with 
deeds of valor. By way of a finishing touch, 
from which the hue of romance is not wanting, 
the terrible Weathersford rides in, on his fa- 
mous gray war horse, and gives himself up to 
the General., 

" You may kill me," says Weathersford. " I 
am ready to die, for I have beheld the destruc- 
tion of my people. No one will hereafter fear 
the Creeks, who are broken and gone. I come 
now to save the women and little children starv- 
ing in the forest." 

The hunting-shirt men, not at all sentimental, 
lift up their voices in favor of slaying the chief. 
At that the General steps in between. 

" The man who would kill a prisoner," he 
cries, " is a dog and the son of a dog. To him 
who touches Weathersford I promise a noose 
and the nearest tree." 

109 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

The General leads his hunting-shirt men by- 
easy marches back to that impatient plenty 
which awaits their coming on the Cumberland. 
The public welcomes him with shout and toss 
of hat, while the blooming Rachel gives her hero 
measureless love and tenderness. The General's 
one hundred and fifty slaves, agog with joy and 
fire water, make merry for two round days. 
They would have enlarged that festival to three 
days, but the stern overseer intervenes to recall 
them to the laborious realities of life. 

As the General begins to have the better of 
his fatigue and sickness — albeit that Benton- 
wounded left arm is still in a sling — a note is 
put in his hands. The note is from the War 
Department in Washington, and reads: "An- 
drew Jackson of Tennessee is appointed Major 
General in the Army of the United States, vice 
William Henry Harrison, resigned." 



X 

FLORIDA DELENDA EST 



nr 



CHAPTER X 

FLORIDA DELENDA EST 

HE General, at the behest of the 
■ blooming Rachel, rests for three 

round weeks, which seem to his fight- 
loving soul like three round years. Then the 
Government sends him to Fort Jackson to dic- 
tate terms of peace to the broken Creeks. 

The latter assemble, war paints washed off, 
in a deeply thoughtful, if not a peaceful, mood. 

The General proposes terms which well nigh 
amount to a wiping out of the Creek landed 
possessions. The Creeks go into secret council, 
as it were executive session, and bemoan their 
desperate lot. They curse the English who 
urged them to that butchery of Fort Mims and 
then deserted them. Beyond relieving their 
minds, however, the curses accomplish no 
Creek good. They must still face the invet- 
erate General, whose word is, " Your lives or 
your lands ! " 

113 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

The mournful, beaten Creeks come forth 
from executive session, and the great formal 
conference begins. The council is called on the 
flat field-like expanse in front of the General's 
imposing marquee — for he has come to this mis- 
sion with no little of pompous style, to the end 
that the Creek mind be impressed. 

The Creek chiefs, blanketed to the ears, 
feathered to the eyes, sit about, crosslegged 
like tailors, in a half circle, their only weapon a 
sacred red-stone pipe. The General, blazing in 
a new uniform, comes out of his marquee. With 
him are Colonel Coffee, Colonel Hawkins, and 
lastly, Colonel Hayne, the brother of him who 
will one day cross blades in Senate debate with 
the lion-faced Webster, and have the worst 
of it. 

As the General steps forward an orderly 
leads up his great war horse, as though the con- 
ference might lapse into battle, and he must be 
ready to mount and fight. To the rear, his hunt- 
ing-shirt men, one thousand strong, are drawn 
out, as following forth those precautions which 
produce the General's war horse. The Creeks, 
at these evidences of suspicious alertness, never 
move a bronze muscle ; they pass the sacred red- 
stone pipe with gravity unmoved, and puff 
114 



FLORIDA DELENDA EST 

away as though the last thing they suspect Is 
suspicion. 

Big Warrior makes a speech, and is followed 
by She-lok-tah, the tribal Demosthenes. The 
General shakes his grim head at their protests; 
there is no help for it, they must give him his 
way or fight. The Creeks bow to the inevita- 
ble, and give the General his way; which bow- 
ing submission is the less disgraceful, since 
both the Spanish at Pensacola and the Eng- 
lish at New Orleans, in a brief handful of 
months, under pressures less stringent than 
are those which now and here in front of 
the General's great marquee bear down the 
broken hopeless Creeks, will follow their ab- 
ject example. 

Having made peace with the Creeks on the 
Tallapoosa, the General lets his angry, war- 
seeking eye rove in the direction of Florida. 
Many of the hostile Creek Red Sticks have fled 
to cover there, where they are made welcome by 
the Spanish Governor Maurequez, and petted 
and pampered by Colonel Nichols and Captain 
Woodbine of the English. The besotted Gov- 
ernor Maurequez has permitted these latter to 
land an English force, and. Inspired by his na- 
tive hatred of Americans and the sight of 
115 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

British ships of war in Pensacola harbor, has 
surrendered to them the last stitch of Florida 
control. 

The General guesses these things and sends 
out scouts to make discoveries. Meanwhile, he 
marches his hunting-shirt men to Mobile, which 
his instincts — never at fault in war — warn him 
will be the next English point of attack. Word 
has reached him of the downfall of Napoleon, 
and he foresees that this will release against 
America the utmost energies of England, who 
in thirty odd years has not forgotten Yorktown 
nor despaired of its repair. 

The General's scouts are a sleepless, observ- 
ant, close-going set of gentlemen, and fairly en- 
ter Pensacola. Presently, they are back with the 
news that two flags float in friendly partnership 
on the battlements of Fort St. Michael, one 
English and one Spanish. Also, seven English 
war ships ride in the harbor. 

They likewise say that the popinjay Colonel 
Nichols Is issuing proclamations to " The Peo- 
ple of Louisiana," demanding that, as " French- 
men, Spaniards, and English," they arise and 
" throw off the American yoke "; that Captain 
Woodbine Is assembling the fugitive Red Sticks 
by scores, and reviving their drooping spirits 
ii6 



FLORIDA DELENDA EST 

with English gold, English guns, English gin, 
and English red coats. 

Captain Woodbine, it appears, is so dull as 
to think he may make regular soldiers of the 
untamed Red Sticks, and drills them in the Pen- 
sacola plaza, where they handle their new mus- 
kets much as a cow might a cant hook, and look 
like copper-colored apes in those gorgeous red 
coats. The tactical, yet tactless, Captain Wood- 
bine even makes his red command a speech, and 
is so unguarded as to refer to " General Jack- 
son." This is a blunder, since instantly half the 
assembled Red Sticks desert, taking with them 
the guns, gin, and jackets which have been con- 
ferred upon them. The oratorical Captain 
Woodbine is deeply impressed by the awful ef- 
fect of the General's name upon his red recruits, 
and their terror communicates itself to him. 
He has difficulty in restraining himself from 
deserting with them, but takes final courage and 
remains. Only he is at pains to delete " Gen- 
eral Jackson " from subsequent eloquence, and 
never again mentions that paladin of the Cum- 
berland in the quaking presence of a Red Stick 
Creek. 

By way of adding to these hardy doings, the 
wordy popinjay, Colonel Nichols, fulminates 
117 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

new proclamations, comic in their ignorance and 
bombast. He believes that the formidable 
General can be whipped by manifestoes. As 
against this belief, however, most careful prep- 
arations move forward aboard the English ships, 
looking to the destruction of Fort Bowyer and 
the capture of Mobile; for Captain Percy of 
the Hermes^ who has command of the fleet, 
is altogether a practical person, and pins no 
faith to proclamations and Indians in red 
coats when it comes to bringing a foe to his 
knees. 

All these interesting items are laid before the 
General by his painstaking scouts, and he is pe- 
culiarly struck with the word about Captain 
Percy and Mobile. He sends back his scouts 
for another bagful of news, and begins to 
strengthen and stiffen Fort Bowyer, thirty 
miles below the town. 

Having patched up this redoubt to his taste, 
the General puts Major Lawrence in command, 
and tells him to fight his batteries while a man 
remains alive. Major Lawrence says he will; 
and, not having a ship, but a fort, to defend, he 
follows as nearly as he may the motto of his 
heroic relative, and issues the watchword, 
" Don't give up the Fort! " Leaving Major 
ii8 



FLORIDA DELENDA EST 

Lawrence in this high vein, the General goes 
back to Mobile to concert plans for its protec- 
tion. 

Captain Percy of the Hermes is a gallant 
man, but a bad judge of Americans. He tells 
the proclaiming Colonel Nichols that he will 
take four ships and capture Fort Bowyer in 
twenty minutes. Colonel Nichols has so little 
trouble in believing this that he conceives the 
deed of conquest already done. Full of hope 
and strong waters — for the English have not 
given the thirsty Red Sticks all their gin — he is 
so far worked upon by Captain Percy's turgid 
prophecies' as to issue a new proclamation, de- 
claring Fort Bowyer taken, and showing how, 
presently, the English intend doing likewise at 
New Orleans. Having taken time so conspicu- 
ously by the forelock, the anticipatory Colonel 
Nichols — who has never been in the chicken 
trade, and therefore knows nothing of what 
perils attend a count of poultry noses before the 
poultry are hatched — goes aboard the Hermes, 
with Captain Woodbine and others of his staff; 
for he would be on the ground, when Fort Bow- 
yer and Mobile succumb, ready to assume con- 
trol of those strongholds. 

It Is no mighty voyage from Pensacola to 
9 119 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Mobile, and a half day's sail will bring Colonel 
Nichols and Captain Percy within point-blank 
range of Fort Bowyer. Taking a bright, cool 
morning for it, Captain Percy lets fall his top- 
sails, and forges seaward, followed by the cor- 
dial wishes of Governor Maurequez who, glass 
in hand, drinks "Good voyage!" from the 
ramparts of St. Michael. 

" All I regret is," cries the valorous Governor 
Maurequez, in the politest phrases of Castile, 
" that you brave English will destroy these vag- 
abonds, and thus deprive me and my heroic 
soldiery of the pleasure of their obliteration, 
when they shall have invaded our beloved 
Florida." 

Away go the English war ships in line, like 
a quartette of geese crossing a mill pond, the 
Hermes, Captain Percy, in the van. The fleet 
rounds the lower extremity of Mobile Point, 
out of range from Fort Bowyer, and lands 
Colonel Nichols with a force of foot soldiers 
and a howitzer. This military feat accom- 
plished, the fleet, still like geese in line, bear up 
until abreast of the Fort, which is a musket 
shot away. 

There is no time wasted. The Hermes lets 
go her anchors and swings broadside-on to the 
1 20 



FLORIDA DELENDA EST 

Fort. The others follow suit. Then, with a 
crashing discharge of big guns by way of over- 
ture, the fight is on. 

Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes go 
by; shots fly and shells burst, and Major Law- 
rence still holds the fort. Evidently Captain 
Percy cut his time too fine! Then, one hour, 
two hours follow, and Major Lawrence's twen- 
ty-four pounders are making matches of the 
Hermes. 

As the merry war progresses. Colonel Nich- 
ols, with much ardor and no discernment, drags 
his howitzer to a strategic sand hill, and fires one 
shot at Fort Bowyer. It is a badly considered 
movement, the instant effect being to draw the 
Fort's horns his way. The southern battery of 
the Fort opens upon him like a tornado, and he 
and his fellow artillerists retire — without their 
howitzer. The most discouraging feature is 
that a stone, sent flying from the strategic sand 
hill by a cannon ball, knocks out one of Colonel 
Nichols's eyes. After this exploit, the one-eyed 
proclamationist, much saddened, but with wis- 
dom increased, is content to stand afar off, and 
leave the down-battering of Fort Bowyer to the 
fleet. 

This down-battering Captain Percy and his 

121 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

sailormen do their tarry best to bring about. 
But, as hour after hour drifts to leeward in the 
smoke of their broadsides, and the stubborn 
Lawrence continues to send his hail of twenty- 
four-pound shot aboard, it begins to creep upon 
Captain Percy, like mosses upon stone, that 
Fort Bowyer is a nut beyond the power of even 
his iron teeth to crack. As a red-hot shot sets 
fire to the Hermes and explodes her magazine, 
the impression deepens to apprehension, which, 
when the Sophia is reported sinking, ripens rap- 
idly into conviction. Major Lawrence, with his 
" Don't give up the Fort! " all but blots Cap- 
tain Percy — who has tenfold his force — off the 
face of the Gulf, and he does it with a loss of 
eight men killed and wounded to an English 
loss of over three hundred. 

Captain Percy, whipped and broken-hearted, 
shifts his flag and what is left of his Hermes' 
crew to the Sophia^ and, pumps clanking hyster- 
ically to keep himself afloat, goes limping back 
to Pensacola, lighted on his defeated way by the 
flare and glare from the blazing Hermes. As 
the English pass the extreme southern tip of 
Mobile Point, as far from the unmannerly bat- 
teries of Fort Bowyer as the lay of the land 
permits, they pick up the one-eyed proclama- 

122 



FLORIDA DELENDA EST 

tionist, Colonel Nichols, and his howltzerless 
men. 

The fleet, battered, torn, sails adroop, with 
the Sophia three feet below her trim from shot- 
admitted water in her hold, reaches Pensacola. 
Governor Maurequez looks scornfully dark, 
but, Spaniard-like, shrugs his vainglorious 
shoulders and says to an aide : 

" It is nothing ! They are but English pigs 1 
When this General Jackson reaches Pensacola 
— if he should be so great a fool as to come — 
we cavaliers of old Spain will tear him to pieces, 
as tigers rend their prey. Yes, amigo, we will 
show these beaten pigs of English how the proud 
blood of the Cid can fight." 

The Red Stick Creeks, furnished of a better 
intelligence, in no wise adopt the high-flying 
sentiments of Governor Maurequez. The mo- 
ment the English come halting into the harbor, 
the awful name of " General Jackson ! " leaps 
from aboriginal lip to lip. Hastily tearing off 
Captain Woodbine's red coats as garments full 
of probable trouble, but taking with them his 
new guns, the frightened Red Sticks head south 
for the Everglades, first drinking up what re- 
mains of their gin. Not a hostile Creek will 
thereafter be found within a day's ride of the 
123 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

General; all of those English plans, which seek 
the aid of savage axe and knife and torch, are 
to fall to pieces. 

Captain Percy, made ten years older by that 
fight and failure at Fort Bowyer, goes about the 
repair of his ships; Colonel Nichols, omitting 
for the nonce all further proclamations, nurses 
his wounds; Captain Woodbine, having now no 
Indians, abandons his daily drills on the plaza; 
Governor Maurequez, whispering with his aide, 
brags in chosen Spanish of what he will do to 
thick-skull vagabond Americans should they put 
themselves in his devouring path; while over at 
Mobile the General hugs Major Lawrence to 
his bosom in a storm of approval, and gives 
that sterhng soldier a sword of honor. 



XI 

THE TWO FLAGS AT 
PENSACOLA 



CHAPTER XI 

THE TWO FLAGS AT PENSACOLA 

THOSE two flags, one the red flag of 
England, flying at Pensacola, haunt 
the General night and day. His 
hunting-shirt men, twenty-eight hundred from 
his beloved Tennessee and twelve hundred from 
the territories of Mississippi and Alabama, are 
lusting for battle. He resolves to lead them 
into Florida, across the Spanish line. 

" We must rout the English out of Pensa- 
cola ! " he explains to Colonel Cofi^ee. 

"Pensacola!" repeats Colonel Coffee, look- 
ing thoughtful. " It is Spanish territory. Gen- 
eral! There Is the boundary; and diplomacy, 
I believe, although It Is an art whereof I know 
little, lays stress on the word boundary." 

" Boundary! " snorts the General in dudgeon. 
" The English are there ! Where my foe goes, 
I go; my diplomacy Is of the sword." 

The General elaborates; for he Is not without 
liking the sound of his own voice. Governor 
127 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Maurequez, he says, has welcomed the Eng- 
lish; he must enlarge that welcome to include 
Americans. 

" For I tell you," goes on the General, " that 
I shall expect from him the same courtesy he 
extends to Colonel Nichols. Nor do I despair 
of receiving it, since I shall take my artillery. 
With both Americans and English among his 
guests, if trouble fall out it will be his own 
fault, and should teach him to practice here- 
after a less complicated hospitality." 

The General prepares for the journey to 
Pensacola. The treasure chest shows the usual 
emptiness, and he exerts his own credit, as he 
did on a Natchez occasion, to provide for his 
hunting-shirt men. This time the Government 
will honor his drafts promptly, for election day 
is drawing near. 

One sun-filled autumn morning, the General 
and his hunting-shirt men march away for Pen- 
sacola, their hearts full of cheering anticipa- 
tions of a fight, and eight days provant in the 
commissariat. 

" We should be there in eight days," says the 
General hopefully, " and Governor Maurequez 
and the English must provide for us after that." 

The General does not overstate the powers of 
128 



FLAGS AT PENSACOLA 

his hunting-shirt men, and the eighth morning 
finds them and him within striking distance of 
Fort St. Michael. The General shades his blue 
eyes with his hand and scans the walls with 
vicious lynxlike Intentness in search of that hated 
red flag. His heart chills when he does not find 
It. There is the flag of Arragon and Castile; 
but the staff which only yesterday supported the 
flag of England stands an unfurnished, naked 
spar of pine. 

The General heaves a sigh. 

*' Coffee," he says, pathos in his tones, " they 
have run away." 

" Possibly," returns the excellent Coffee, who 
sees that the General's regrets are leveled at an 
absence of English, and is anxious to console 
him, " possibly they've only retired to Fort 
Barrancas, six miles below, and are waiting 
for us there." 

The disappointed General shakes his head; 
he does not share the confidence of the optimis- 
tic Coffee. 

" Send Major Plere," he says, " with a flag 
of truce to announce to the Spaniard our pur- 
pose of lunching with him. We will ask him, 
now we're here, by what license he gives shelter 
to our enemies." 

129 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Major Plere goes forward, white flag flutter- 
ing, and is promptly fired upon by Governor 
Maurequez at the distance of six hundred yards. 
The balls fly wide and high, for the Spaniard 
shoots like a Creek. Finding himself a target, 
the disgusted Major Piere returns and reports 
his uncivil reception. The General's eyes blaze 
with a kind of blue fury. 

"Turn out the troops! " he roars. 

The drums sound the long roll. The hunt- 
ing-shirt men are about the cookery — being al- 
ways hungry — of the last of those eight days' 
rations. When they fall into line, the General 
makes them a speech. It is brief, but registers 
the point of better provender in Pensacola than 
that which now bubbles in their coffee pots and 
burns on their spits. Whereat the hunting-shirt 
men cheer joyously. 

" The English, too, are there," concludes the 
General. Then, in a burst of flattering elo- 
quence: "And I know that you would sooner 
fight Englishmen than eat." 

At the name of Englishmen, the hunting-shirt 
men give such a cheer that it quite throws that 
former cheer into the vocal shade. Everyone 
is in immediate favor of rushing on Pensacola. 

The General becomes cunning, and sends 
130 



FLAGS AT PENSACOLA 

Colonel Coffee with a detachment of cavalry to 
threaten Fort St. Michael from the east. The 
Spaniards are singularly guileless in matters 
military. That feigned attack succeeds beyond 
expression, and the befogged Governor Maure- 
quez hurries his entire garrison to those menaced 
eastern walls. 

While the excited Spaniards are making a 
chattering, magpie fringe along the eastern ram- 
parts, the General moves the bulk of his hunt- 
ing-shirt forces, under cover of the woods, to 
the fort's western face. Once they are placed, 
he gives the order: 

"Charge!" 

The word sends the hunting-shirt men at that 
mud-built citadel with a whoop. 

The Spaniards are unstrung by surprise, and 
fall to pattering prayers and telling beads. In 
the very midst of their orisons, the hunting- 
shirt men, as in the fight at the Horseshoe, 
pour like a cataract over the parapet and 
sweep the praying, helpless Spaniards into a 
corner. 

The work, however, is not altogether done. 

When Governor Maurequez gives the order to 

man the eastern walls against the deploying 

Coffee, he does not remain to see it executed. 

131 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Having sublime faith in the heroism of his fol- 
lowers, for him to personally remain, he argues, 
would be superfluous. Nay, it might even be 
construed into a criticism of his devoted soldiery, 
as implying a fear that they will not fight if 
relieved of his fiery presence, not to say the fiery 
pressure of his commanding eye. Having thus 
defined his position, the valorous Governor 
Maurequez, acting in that spirit of compliment 
toward his people which has ever characterized 
his speech, gathers up his gubernatorial skirts 
and scuttles for his palace like a scared hen 
pheasant. 

Having swept the walls of St. Michael clean 
of magpie Spaniards, and run up the stars and 
stripes on the vacant English staff, the General 
and his hunting-shirt men make ready to follow 
Governor Maurequez to the palace. He is to 
be their host; it is their polite duty to find him 
with all dispatch and offer their compliments. 

Full of this urbane purpose, they wheel their 
bristling ranks on the town. Approaching 
double-quick, they casually lick up, as with a 
tongue of flame, a brace of abortive block- 
houses which obstruct their path. At this, an 
interior fort opens fire with grapeshot and 
shrapnel, and the hunting-shirt men spring 
132 



FLAGS AT PENSACOLA 

upon it with the ruthless ferocity of panthers. 
To quench it is no more than the fighting work 
of a moment. The General, with his flag al- 
ready on the ramparts of Fort St. Michael, now 
feels his clutch at the very throat of Pensacola. 

Governor Maurequez, equipped in his turn 
of a milk-white flag, bursts from the palace 
portals. 

" Oh, Seiiores Americanos," he cries, " spare, 
for the love of the Virgin, my beautiful Pensa- 
cola ! As you hope for heaven's mercy, spare 
my beautiful city ! " 

The wild hunting-shirt men are in a jocular 
mood. The terrified rushing about of Gover- 
nor Maurequez excites their laughter. 

" Where is your humane General Jackson? " 
wails Governor Maurequez, in appeal to the 
hunting-shirt men. " Where is he — I beseech 
you? I hear he is the soul of merciful for- 
bearance ! " 

At this the hunting-shirt laughter breaks out 
with double volume, as though Governor Maure- 
quez has evolved a jest. 

The alarmed Governor, catching sight of a 
couple of dead Spaniards, fresh killed in the 
struggle with the foolish interior fort, expresses 
his grief in staccato shrieks, which serve as 

133 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

weird marks of punctuation to the laughter of 
the rude hunting-shirt men. The laughter 
ceases when the General himself rides up. 

" Thar's the Gin'ral," says a hunting-shirt 
man, biting his merriment short off. " Thar's 
the man of mercy you're asking for." 

Governor Maurequez starts back at sight of 
the gaunt face, emaciated by sickness born of 
those Benton bullets, and yellowed to primrose 
hue with the malaria of the Alabama swamps. 
The lean figure on the big war stallion might 
remind him of Don Quixote — for he has read 
and remembers his Cervantes — save for the 
frown like the look of a fighting falcon, and 
the fire-sparkle in the dangerous blue eyes. As 
it Is, he feels that his visitor Is a perilous man, 
and begins to bow and cringe. 

" I beg the victorious Senor General," says 
he, pressing meanwhile a right hand to his heart, 
and presenting the white square of truce with 
the other — " I beg the victorious Seiior Gene- 
ral to spare my beautiful Pensacola ! " 

"You are Governor Maurequez!" returns 
the General, hard as flint. 

" Yes, Senor General ; I am Governor Mau- 
requez, as you say. Also " — here his voice 
begins to shake — " I must remind your excel- 
134 



FLAGS AT PENSACOLA 

lency that this is a province of Spain, and ask 
by what right you invade it." 

" Right! " returns the General, anger rising. 
" Did you not fire on my messenger? Sir, if 
you were Satan and this your kingdom, it would 
be the same ! I would storm the walls of hell 
itself to get at an Englishman." 

There comes the whiplike crack of a rifle 
almost at the General's elbow. Far up the nar- 
row street, full four hundred yards and more, 
a flying Spanish soldier throws up his hands 
with a death yell, and pitches forward on his 
face. At this, the hunting-shirt man who fired 
tosses his coonskin cap in the air and shouts: 

" Thar, Bill Potter, the jug of whisky's mine ! 
Thar's your Spaniard too dead to skin ! If the 
distance ain't four hundred yard, you kin have 
the gun ! " 

"What's this?" cries the General fiercely. 

" Nothin', Gin'ral ! " replies the hunting- 
shirt man, abashed at the forbidding manner of 
the General, " nothin', only Bill Potter, from 
the 'Possum Trot, bets me a jug of whisky that 
old Soapstick here " — holding up his rifle as 
identifying " old Soapstick " — " won't kill at 
four hundred yard." 

" Betting, eh ! " retorts the General, assuming 
10 135 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

the coldly Implacable. " Now it's in my mind, 
Mr. Soapstick, that unless you mend your mor- 
als, some one about your size will pass an hour 
strung up by the thumbs so high his moccasins 
won't touch the grass ! How often must I tell 
you that I'm bound to break up gambling among 
my troops? " 

The rebuked soapstick one slinks away, and 
the General turns to Colonel Coffee. 

*' Give the word, Coffee, to cease firing." 

The General's glance comes around to Gov- 
ernor Maurequez, still bowing and presenting 
his white flag. 

"Where are those English?" he demands. 

The frightened Governor Maurequez makes 
the sign of the cross. He is sorry, but the pig 
English withdrew to Fort Barrancas at the first 
signs of the coming of the victorious Sefior Gen- 
eral, taking with them their hateful red flag. 
Also, it was they who fired on the messenger. 
If the victorious Sefior General will but move 
quickly, he may catch the pig English before 
they escape. 

The General, half his hunting-shirt men at 

his back, starts for Fort Barrancas. They are 

two miles on their way when the earth is shaken 

by a thunderous explosion. Over the tops of 

136 



FLAGS AT PENSACOLA 

the forest pines a gush of black smoke shoots 
upward toward the sky. 

"They have blown up the fort!" says the 
explanatory Coffee. 

The General says nothing, but urges speed. 
At last they come in sight of what has been Fort 
Barrancas. It is as the astute Coffee surmised. 
The one-eyed Colonel Nichols and his English 
have fled, leaving a slow-match and the maga- 
zine to destroy what they dared not defend. 
Far away in the offing Captain Percy's English 
fleet — upon which the one-eyed Colonel Nichols 
and his fugitive followers have taken refuge — 
wind aft and an ebb tide to help, Is speeding 
seaward like gulls. 



XII 

THE GENERAL GOES TO 
NEW ORLEANS 



CHAPTER XII 

THE GENERAL GOES TO NEW ORLEANS 

GOVERNOR MAUREQUEZ evolves 
into the very climax of the affable, 
not to say obsequious. He assures 
the General that he is relieved by the flight of 
the pig English, whom he despises as hare- 
hearts. Also, he is breathless to do anything 
that shall prove his affectionate admiration for 
his friend, the valorous Seiior General. 

The General accepts the affectionate admira- 
tion of Governor Maurequez, and leaves in his 
care Major Laval, who has been too severely 
wounded to move; and Governor Maurequez 
subsequently smothers that convalescent with 
nursing solicitude and kindness. Those other 
twenty wounded hunting-shirt men the General 
takes back with him to Mobile. 

The General now gives himself up to a pro- 
found study of maps. His invasion of Florida 
has paled the cheek of the Spanish Minister at 
Washington and given European diplomacy a 
141 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

chill; he knows nothing of that, however, and 
would care even less if he did. After poring 
over his maps for divers days, he comes to sun- 
dry sagacious conclusions, and sends for the in- 
dispensable Coffee to confer. That commander 
makes an admirable counselor for the General, 
since he seldom speaks, and then only to indorse 
emphatically the General's views. For these 
splendid qualities, and because he is as brave as 
Richard the Lion Heart, the General makes a 
point of consulting the excellent Coffee concern- 
ing every move. 

" Coffee," says the General, as that warrior 
casts himself upon a bench, which creaks dolor- 
ously beneath his giant weight, " Coffee, they'll 
attack New Orleans next." 

The listening Coffee grunts, and the General, 
correctly construing the Coffee grunt to mean 
agreement, proceeds: 

" England has now no foe in Europe. That 
allows her to turn upon us with her whole 
power. Even as we talk, I've no doubt but an 
immense fleet is making ready to pounce upon 
our coasts. Now, Coffee, the question is, 
Where will it pounce? " 

The General pauses as though for answer. 
The admirable Coffee emits another grunt, and 
142 



TO NEW ORLEANS 

the General understands this second grunt to be 
a grunt of inquiry. Stabbing the map before 
him, therefore, with his long, slim finger, he 
says : 

" Here, Coffee, here at New Orleans. It's 
the least defended, and, fairly speaking, the 
most important port we have, for it locks or 
unlocks the Mississippi. Besides, it's mid- 
winter, and such points as New York and Phila- 
delphia are seeing rough, cold weather. Yes, 
I'm right; you may take it from me, Coffee, 
the English are aiming a blow at New Orleans." 

The convinced Coffee testifies by a third 
grunt that his own belief is one and the same 
with the General's, and the council of war 
breaks up. As the big rifleman swings away 
for his quarters the General observes : 

" Coffee, you will never realize how much I 
am aided by your opinions. Two heads are 
better than one, particularly when one of them 
is capable of such a clean, unfaltering grasp of 
a situation as is yours." 

The General burns to be at New Orleans, 
and leaving Colonel Coffee to bring on his three 
thousand hunting-shirt men as fast as he may, 
gallops forward with four of his staff. It is a 
rough, evil road that threads those one hundred 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

and seventy-five miles which lie between the 
General and the Mississippi, but he puts It be- 
hind him with amazing rapidity. At last the 
wide, sullen river rolls at his horse's feet. 

As the General traverses the rude forest 
roads, difficult with November's mud and slush, 
a few days' sail away on the Jamaica coast may 
be seen proof of the pure truth of his deduc- 
tions. The English admiral is reviewing his 
fleet of fifty ships, preparatory to a descent 
upon New Orleans. 

It is a formidable flotilla, with ten thousand 
sailors and nine thousand five hundred soldiers 
and marines, and mounts one thousand cannon. 
The flagship Is the Tonnant, eighty guns, and 
-V there sail in her company such invincibles as the 
Royal Oak, the Norge, the Jsia, the Bedford, 
and the RatJiillies, each carrying seventy- four 
guns. With these are the Dictator, the Gorgon, 
the Annide, the Sea Horse, and the Belle Poule, 
and the weakest among them better than a two- 
decked forty-four. 

In command of this armada are such doughty 

spirits as Sir Alexander Cockrane, admiral of 

^ the red, Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, Rear 

Admiral Malcolm, and Captain Sir Thomas 

Hardy — " Nelson's Hardy," who commanded 

144 



TO NEW ORLEANS 

the one-armed fighter's flagship Victory at Tra- 
falgar. These, with their followers, have 
grown gray and tired in unbroken triumph. 
Now, when they are making ready to spring on 
New Orleans, their war word is " Beauty and 
Booty!" 

Review over, Admiral Cockrane in the van 
with the Tonnant, the fleet sails out of Negril 
Bay for Louisiana. As the General's horse 
cools his weary muzzle in the Mississippi, the 
English fleet has been two days on its course. 

It is a dull, lowering December morning when 
the General, on his great war stallion, follow- 
ing the Bayou road, rides into New Orleans. 
He finds the city in a tumult, and nothing afoot 
for its defense. He is received by Governor 
Claiborne, a stately Virginian, and Mayor 
Girod, plump and little and gray and French, 
with a delegation of citizens. Among the lat- 
ter is one whom the General recognizes. He 
is Edward Livingston, aforetime of New York, 
and the General's dearest friend in those old 
Philadelphia Congressional days. The General 
gives the Livingston hand a squeeze and says: 

" It's like medicine in wine, Ned, to see you 
at such a time as this." 

Governor Claiborne makes a speech in Eng- 

145 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

lish, Mayor Girod makes a speech in French, 
leading citizens make speeches in English, Span- 
ish, and French. The speeches are fiery, but 
inconclusive. All are excited, confused, and 
without a plan. The General replies in little 
more than a word: 

" I have come to defend your city," says he; 
*' and I shall defend it or find a grave among 
you." 

Following this ultimatum, the General goes 
to dinner with Mr. Livingston. 

Governor Claiborne, Mayor Girod, and the 
leading citizens remain behind to talk the Gen- 
eral over in their several tongues. They are 
disappointed, it seems. They looked for a mili- 
tary personage of romantic, inspiring splendor. 
And what is he? A meager, emaciated figure 
in a leather cap, a Spanish cloak of rusty blue, 
homespun coat, buckskin breeches, and high 
dragoon boots as red as a horse from the pro- 
longed absence of tallow and lampblack. Still 
they cannot forget the iron face and the high 
hawklike glance of the blue eyes, in which the 
battle fires already begin to kindle. The man 
in his queer habiliments is grotesque; in their 
souls they none the less concede his formidable 
character. 

146 




General William C. C. Claiborne 

From a miniature by A. Duval. 



TO NEW ORLEANS 

There be those who wish he hadn't come. 
Among them is the Speaker of the Territorial 
House of Representatives — A French Creole of 
anti-American sentiments. 

" His presence will prove a calamity ! " cries 
this legislative person. " He seems to me to be 
a desperado, who will make war like a savage 
and bring destruction and fire on our city and 
the neighboring plantations." 

There is no retort to this, for the local spirit 
of treason is widespread. 

While the citizens of New Orleans are dis- 
cussing the General, he with his friend Living- 
ston is discussing them. 

"What is the state of affairs here, Ned?" 
asks the General. 

" It could not be worse," is the reply. " All 
is confusion, contradiction, and cross-purposes. 
The whole city seems to be walking in a circle." 

" We'll see, Ned," returns the General grim- 
ly, " if we can't make it walk in a straight line." 

Commodore Patterson comes to call on the 
General. He is one who says little and looks a 
deal — precisely a gentleman after the General's 
own heart, for while he himself likes to talk, 
he prefers silence in others. 

Commodore Patterson sets forth the naval 

147 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

defenses of the town. An enemy entering from 
the sea must come by way of Lake Borgne, 
and there are six baby gunboats on Lake 
Borgne. The flotilla is commanded by Lieu- 
tenant Jones, who is Welsh and therefore ob- 
stinate; he will fight to the final gasp. The 
General beams approval of Lieutenant Jones, 
who he thinks has a right notion of war. 

*' But of course," says Commander Patter- 
son, " he will be overcome in the end." 

The General nods to this. He does not ex- 
pect Lieutenant Jones to defend the city alone. 
Commodore Patterson continues: "There are 
the schooner Carolina and the ship Louisiana 
in the river, but they are out of commission and 
have no crews." 

" Enlist crews at once ! " urges the General. 

The General appoints Mr. Livingston to his 
staff, and the pair make a tour of the suburbs 
and the flat, marshy regions round about. The 
General is alert, inquisitive; he is studying the 
strategic advantages and disadvantages of the 
place. When he returns he orders a muster of 
the city's military strength for the next day. 
The review occurs, and the General declares 
himself pleased with the display. 

Commodore Patterson comes to say that, 
148 



TO NEW ORLEANS 

while the streets are full of sailors, not one will 
enlist. The General asks the Legislature to 
suspend the habeas corpus. That done, he will 
organize press gangs and enlist those reluc- 
tant " volunteers " by force. The Legisla- 
ture refuses, and the General's eyes begin to 
sparkle. 

" To-morrow, Ned," says he, "I shall clap 
your city under martial law." 

" But, my dear General," urges Mr. Living- 
ston, who, being a lawyer, reveres the law, 
" you haven't the authority." 

" But, my dear Ned," replies the determined 
General, " I have the power. Which is more 
to the point." 

The General declares civil rule suspended, 
and puts the city under martial law. It is as 
though he lays his strong, bony hand on the 
shoulder of every man, and, the first shock over, 
every man feels safer for it. The press gangs 
are formed, and scores of seafaring " volun- 
teers " are carried aboard the Carolina and 
Louisiana m irons. Once aboard and irons off, 
the " volunteers " become miracles of zeal and 
patriotic fire, furbishing up the dormant broad- 
side guns, filling the shot racks, and making 
ready the magazines, hearts light as larks, as 
149 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

though to fight Invading English is the one 
pleasant purpose of their lives; for such is the 
seafaring nature. 

The General's " press " does not confine itself 
to sailors. Negroes, mules, carts, shovels, and 
picks are brought under his rigid thumb. Every 
gun, every sword, every pistol is collected and 
stored for use when needed. Meanwhile, the 
indefatigable Coffee arrives, marching seventy 
miles the last day and fifty the day before to 
join his beloved chief. Also Captain Hinds 
of the dragoons is no less headlong, and brings 
his command two hundred and thirty miles in 
four days, such is his heat to fight beneath the 
blue, commanding eye of the General. 

Nor is this all. A day goes by, and Colonel 
Carroll steps ashore from a fleet of flatboats, 
at the head of a hunting-shirt force from the 
Cumberland country. The backwoods cheer 
which goes up when the new hunting-shirt men 
see the General, brings the water to his eyes 
with thoughts of home. Lastly, Colonel Adair 
appears with his force of Kentuckians. These 
latter are a disappointment, being practically un- 
armed, owning but one gun among ten. 

"Ain't you got no guns for us, Gin'ral?" 
asks one of the Kentucky captains anxiously. 
150 



TO NEW ORLEANS 

" I am sorry to say I have not," returns the 
General. 

" Well," responds the Kentuckian, while a 
look of satisfaction begins to struggle into his 
face, as though he has hit upon a solution of the 
tangle, " well, I'll tell you what we'll do, then. 
Which the boys '11 just nacherally go out on 
the firin' line with the rest, an' then as fast as 
one of them Tennesseans gets knocked over, 
we'll up an' Inherit his gun." 



V 



11 



XIII 

THE WATCH FIRES OF THE 
ENGLISH 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE WATCH FIRES OF THE ENGLISH 

THESE are busy times for the General. 
He lives on rice and coffee, and goes 
days and nights without sleep. He 
sends the tireless Coffee, with his hunting-shirt 
men, to take position below the city, between 
the morass and the river. Finally he orders all 
his forces below — Colonel Carroll with his new 
hunting-shirt men, Colonel Adair with his un- 
armed Kentuckians, the hard-riding Captain 
Hinds with his dragoons, as well as the muster 
of local military companies, among the rest 
Major Plauche's battalion of " Fathers of Fami- 
lies." There are a great many filial as well as 
paternal tears shed when the " Fathers of Fami- 
lies " march away to the field of certain honor 
and possible death; even Papa Plauche himself 
does not refrain from a sob or two. The 
" Fathers of Families " take with them their 
band, which musical organization plays the 

155 



>r 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Chant du Depart^ whereat, catching the tem- 
po^ they strut heroically. The rough hunting- 
shirt men are much Interested In the " Fathers 
of Families," and think them as good as a play. 
The General busies himself about his head- 
quarters, and waits for news of the English, of 
whose coming he has word. One afternoon 
appears a lean little dark man, with black, 
beady eyes, like a rat. He Introduces himself; 
^ he Is Jean Lafitte, the *' Pirate of Barratarla." 
Only he explains that he Is really no pirate at 
all, not even a sailor; at the worst he Is simply 
the Innocent shore agent or business manager 
of pirates. Also, he declares that he Is very 
patriotic and very rich, and might add " very 
criminal " without startling the truth. 

Why has he come to see Monsieur General? 
Only to show him a letter from the English 
Admiralty, brought by the General's old friend. 
Captain Percy, late of H. R. H. Ship Hermes, 
offering him, Jean Lafitte, a captain's commis- 
sion In the royal navy, thirty thousand dollars 
in English gold, and the privilege of looting 
New Orleans, if he will but aid in the city's 
capture. Now he, Jean Lafitte, scorning these 
base attempts upon his honor, desires to offer 
his own and the services of his buccaneers to the 
156 



WATCH FIRES OF ENGLISH 

General in repulsing those villain English, whom 
he looks upon with loathing as Greeks bearing 
gifts. 

" Only," concludes Jean Lafitte, his black 
rat eyes taking on a sly expression, " my two 
best captains, Dominique and Bluche, together 
with most of their crews, are locked up in the 
New Orleans calaboose." 

The General considers a moment, looking the 
while deep into the rat eyes of Jean Lafitte. 
The scrutiny is satisfactory; there is nothing 
there save an anxiety to get his men out of jail. 
This the General is pleased to regard as credit- 
able to Jean Lafitte. He comes back to the 
question in hand. 

" Dominique and Bluche," he repeats. " Can 
they fight? " 

" They can do anything with a cannon, Mon- 
sieur General, which your sharpshooters do with 
their squirrel rifles." 

The General has the caged Dominique and 
Bluche brought before him. They are hardy, 
daring, brown men of the sea, with bushy hair, 
curling beards, gold rings in their ears, crimson 
handkerchiefs about their heads, gay shirts, 
sashes of silk, short voluminous trousers, like 
Breton fisherman, and loose sea boots — alto- 

157 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

gether of the brine briny are Dominique and 
Bluche.' One glance convinces the General. 
The order is issued, and the two pirates with 
their followers take their places as artillerists 
where the wary Coffee may keep an eye on them. 

The English fleet arrives and anchors off the 
Louisiana coast. Loaded scuppers-deep with 
soldiers and sailors and marines, the lighter 
craft enter Lake Borgne. They sight the six 
cockleshells of Lieutenant Jones, and make for 
them. 

Lieutenant Jones, with his cockleshells, slowly 
and carefully retreats. He retreats so carefully 
that one after another the English boats, to the 
round number of a score, run aground on divers 
mud banks, where they stick, looking exceed- 
ing foolish. When the last pursuing boat is 
fast on the mud banks. Lieutenant Jones anchors 
his six cockleshells where the English may only 
get at him in small boats, and awaits results. 

The English are in no wise backward. Down 
splash the small boats, in tumble the men, and 
presently they are pulling down upon the wait- 
ing Lieutenant Jones — twelve men for every 
one of his. The small boats have swivels 
mounted in their bows, and by way of prelimi- 
nary, stand off from the six cockleshells, waging 
158 



WATCH FIRES OF ENGLISH 

battle with their little bow guns. This is a mis- 
take. Lieutenant Jones returns the fire -from his 
cockleshells, sinks four of the small boats, and 
spills out the crews among the alligators. Un- 
happily, it is winter, and the alligators are sound 
asleep in the mud below, by which effect of the 
season the spilled ones are pulled aboard their 
sister boats with legs and arms intact. 

Being reorganized, and having enough of 
swivel war, the English fleet of small boats 
rush the six cockleshells, and after a fierce strug- 
gle, take them by weight of numbers. The 
English Captain Lockyer, following the fight, 
wipes the blood from his face, which has been 
scratched by a cutlass, and reports to Admiral 
Cockrane his success, and adds : 

" The American loss is, killed and wounded, 
sixty; English, ninety-four." 

Being masters of Lake Borgne, the English 
go about the landing of troops on Pine Island. 
The sixteen hundred first ashore are formed into 
an advance battalion and ordered forward. 
They go splashing through the swamps toward 
the river like so many muskrats, and in the 
wet, cold, dripping end crawl out on a narrow 
belt of sugar-cane stubble which bristles between 
the levee and the swamp from which they have 

159 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

emerged. Finding dry land under their feet, 
they cheer up a bit, and build fires to make com- 
fortable their bivouac while waiting the coming 
of their comrades, still wallowing in the swamp. 

Night descends, but finds those sixteen hun- 
dred of the English advance reasonably gay; 
for, while the present is distressing, their fel- 
lows by brigades will be with them in the morn- 
ing, and they may then march on to sumptuous 
New Orleans, where — as goes their war word — 
theirs shall be the " Beauty and Booty " for 
which they have come so far. And so the 
chilled, starved sixteen hundred of that English 
advance hold out their benumbed hands to the 
fires, and console themselves with what the poet 
describes as " The Pleasures of Anticipation." 
And in this instance, of course, the anticipations 
are sure of fulfillment, for what shall withstand 
them? The raw, cowardly militia of the coun- 
try? Absurd! 

As confirmatory of this, a subaltern hands 
about a copy of the London Sun which has a 
description of Americans. The others peruse 
it by the light of their camp fires. It makes 
timely reading, since it is ever worth while to 
gather — so that they be reliable — what scraps 
one may descriptive of an enemy. The Eng- 
i6o 



WATCH FIRES OF ENGLISH 

lish, crouched about their fires, are much bene- 
fited by the following: 

" The American armies of Copper Captains 
and Falstaff recruits defy the pen of satire to 
paint them worse than they are — worthless, 
lying, treacherous, false, slanderous, cowardly, 
and vaporing heroes, with boasting on their loud 
tongues and terror in their quaking hearts. 
Were it not that the course of punishment they 
are to receive is necessary to the ends of moral 
and political justice, we declare before our 
country that we should feel ashamed of victory 
over such ignoble foes. The quarrel resembles ^ 
one between a gentleman and a sweep — the 
former may beat the low scoundrel to his heart's 
content, but there is no honor in the exploit, 
and he is sure to be covered with the soil and 
dirt of his ignominious antagonist. But neces- 
sity will sometimes compel us to descend from 
our station to chastise a vagabond, and endure 
the degradation of such a contest in order to 
repress, by wholesome correction, the presump- 
tuous insolence and mischievous designs of the 
basest assailant." 

The young English officers find this refresh- 
ing as literature. It might have been less up- 
lifting could they have foreseen how ninety 
years later England will fawn upon and flatter 
and wheedle America to the point which sick- 
i6i 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

ens, while her bankrupt nobility make that de- 
spised region a hunting ground where, equipped 
of a title and a coat of arms, they track heir- 
esses to lairs of gold and marry them. 

Now that the satisfied English are asleep 
about their fires, it behooves one to hear how 
the General is faring. The day with him is one 
fraught with work. Word reaches him of the 
captured cockleshells on Lake Borgne. Also 
it reaches that valuable Legislature — honey- 
combed of treason. 

The Legislature sends a committee to ask the 
General what will be his course If he's beaten 
back. The General Is hardly courteous: 

" Tell your honorable body," says he, " that 
if disaster overtake me and the fate of war 
drives me from my lines to the city, they may 
expect to have a very warm session," 

Mr. Livingston catches the adjective. The 
committee having departed, he propounds a 
query. 

"A warm session, General!" says he. 
*' What do you mean by that? " 

" Ned," replies the General, " If I am beaten 

here, I shall fall back on the city, fire it, and 

fight It out in the flames! Nothing for the 

maintenance of the enemy shall be left. New 

162 



WATCH FIRES OF ENGLISH 

Orleans destroyed, I shall occupy a position on 
the river above, cut off supplies, and, since I can't 
drive, I shall starve the English out of the coun- 
try. There is this difference, Ned, between me 
and those fellows from the Legislature. They 
think only of the city and its safety. For my 
side, I'm not here to defend the city, but the 
nation at large." 

On the heels of this, the Legislature whispers 
of surrendering Louisiana to the English by 
resolution. It is scarcely feasible as a plan, but 
it angers the General. He stations a guard at 
the door of the chamber and turns the members 
away. 

" We can dispense with your sessions," says 
he. " We have laws enough ; our great need 
now is men and muskets at the front." 

The patricians of the Legislature are scandal- 
ized as being shut out of their chamber. 

" Did I not tell you," cries the prophetic 
House Speaker, " did I not tell you this fellow 
was a desperado, and would wage war like a 
savage : 

The members retire from the guarded doors, 

cursing the General under their breath. Their 

doorkeeper, a low, common person, is so struck 

by what the General has said anent men and 

163 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

muskets, that he gets a gun and joins that " des- 
perado." And wherefore no? Patriotism has 
been the mark of vulgar souls in every age. 

Colonel Coffee's hunting-shirt scouts come in 
and report the watch fires of those sixteen 
hundred of the English advance winking and 
blinking among the sugar stubble. 

"Ah!" says the General, "I've a mind to 
disturb their dreams." 

The General dispatches word to Commodore 
Patterson to have the Carolina in readiness to 
act with his forces. Then he sends for the in- 
dispensable Coffee. 

" Coffee, we shall attack them to-night." 

The wise Coffee gives the grunt acquiescent. 

" Thank you, Coffee ! " says the General. 

The council over, Colonel Coffee goes to turn 
out the troops. This is to be done softly, as a 
surprise is aimed at. 

Now on the dread threshold of battle. Papa 
Plauche of the " Fathers of Families " is over- 
come. As the intrepid " Fathers " fall into 
line, tears fill Papa Plauche's eyes, and he ap- 
peals to neighbor St. Geme. 

" I am a Frenchman! " cries Papa Plauche, 
tossing his arms; " I am a Frenchman, and do 
not fear to die! But, alas! mon St. Geme, I 
164 



WATCH FIRES OF ENGLISH 

fear I have not the courage to lead the ' Fathers 
of Families ' to slaughter." 

"Hush, Papa Plauche!" returns the good 
St. Geme, made wretched by the grief of his 
friend. "Hush! Command yourself! Do 
not let the wild General hear you ; he will not, 
with his coarse nature, understand such senti- 
ments." 

Captain Roche, of the " Fathers of Fami- 
lies," steps in front of his company. Striking 
his breast melodramatically, he sings out: 

" Sergeant Roche, advance! " 

Sergeant Roche advances. 

"Embrace me, brother!" cries Captain 
Roche in broken utterances, " embrace me! It 
is perhaps for the last time." 

The brothers Roche embrace, and the 
" Fathers of Families " are melted by the tab- 
leau. 

"Sergeant Roche, return to your place!" 
commands the devoted Captain Roche, and the 
sergeant, weeping, lapses into the ranks. 

The hunting-shirt men, witnesses of these 
touching scenes, are rude enough to laugh, and 
by way of parody embrace one another effu- 
sively. As they depart through the dark for 
their station, they break into whispered debate 

165 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

as to whether the theatrical grief of Papa 
Plauche, the brothers Roche, and the " Fathers 
of Famihes " is due to their Creole blood, or 
their city breeding, either, according to the the- 
ories of the hunting-shirt men, being calculated 
to promote the effeminate in a man. While 
they thus wrangle, there comes an angry hiss- 
ing whisper from Colonel Coffee, like the hiss 
of a serpent : 

"Silence!" 

Every hunting-shirt man is stricken dumb. 
They move forward like shadows, right flank 
skirting the cypress swamp. To the far left they 
hear the moccasined, half-muffled tramp of 
Colonel Carroll's men — their hunting-shirt 
brothers from the Cumberland. As they turn 
a bend in the swamp, they see not a furlong 
away the flickering and shadow dancing of the 
watch fires of the tired English. At this every 
hunting-shirt man makes certain the flint is se- 
cure in the hammer of his rifle, and loosens the 
knife and tomahawk In his rawhide belt. 



XIV 
THE BATTLE IN THE DARK 



12 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE BATTLE IN THE DARK 

AS the hunting-shirt men come within 
sight of the blinking lights, which 
polka-dot the sugar stubble In front 
and mark the bivouac of the English, Colonel 
Coffee sends the whispered word along the line 
to halt. At this, the hunting-shirt men crouch 
in the lee of the cypress swamp, and wait. 
Colonel Coffee Is lying by for the signal which 
shall tell him to begin. 

Before the movement commences, the Gen- 
eral calls Colonel Coffee to one of their cele- 
brated conferences. 

" It is my purpose, Coffee," explains the 
General, " merely to shake them up a bit. An 
attack will cure them of overconfidence, and 
break the teeth of their conceit. This should 
hold them in check, and give us time for certain 
earthworks I meditate. The signal will be a 
gun from the Carolina. When you hear the 
169 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

gun, Coffee, attack everything wearing a red 
coat. But be careful!" Here the General 
lifts, a long, admonitory finger. " Do not fol- 
low too far ! Reinforcements are crawling 
out of the swamp to the rear of the English 
every hour, and the only certainty is that, 
even as we talk, they outnumber us two for 
one." 

The faithful Coffee departs. As he reaches 
the door, the General calls after him: 

" Don't forget, Coffee ! The gun from the 
Carolina ! " 

The hunting-shirt men lie waiting by the 
cypress swamp. On their near left is Papa 
Plauche and his " Fathers of Families." Be- 
yond these is a half company of regulars, which 
the General has brought up from the near-by 
post. On the Bayou Road, between the regu- 
lars and the river, is the General himself, with 
a brace of small field pieces. 

It is a moonless night, and what light the 
stars might furnish is withheld by a blanket- 
screen of thick clouds. No night could be 
darker; for, lest an occasional star find a cloud- 
rift and peer through, a fog drifts up from the 
river. This is good for the English, since It 
hides their watch fires, which one by one are 
170 



THE BATTLE IN THE DARK 

lost in the mists. The darkness deepens until 
even the hawk-eyed hunting-shirt men, trained 
by much night fighting to a nocturnal keenness 
of vision, are unable to make out their nearest 
comrades. 

The pitch blackness, and the fog chill creep- 
ing over him, tell on Papa Plauche. He whis- 
pers sorrowfully to his friend St. Geme. 

" Neighbor St. Geme," he says, " these dif- 
ferences should be adjusted by argument, and 
not by deadly guns. I see that he who would 
either shoot or be shot by his fellow-man, is in 
an erroneous position." 

Before the kindly St. Geme may frame re- 
sponse, a liquid tongue of flame illuminates the 
broad dark bosom of the river. It is followed 
sharply by a crashing " Boom! " This is the 
word from the Carolina. 

The signal carries dismay into the hearts of 
the English, since Commodore Patterson, whose 
genius is thoroughgoing, is at pains to load 
the gun with two pecks of slugs, and eighty- 
four killed and wounded are the red English 
harvest of that one discharge. The frightened 
drums beat the alarm, and the ranks of Eng- 
lish form. As they grasp their arms the nine 
broadside guns of the Carolina begin to rake 
171 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

them. With this the English fall slowly back 
from the river. 

The rearward movement, while managed 
slowly because of the darkness, brings discour- 
aging results. The English retreat into the 
hunting-shirt men, who are skirmishing up 
from the cypress swamp. The English are first 
told of this new danger by the spitting flashes 
which remind them of needles of fire, and the 
crack of the long squirrel rifles like the snap- 
ping of a whip. Here and there, too, a groan 
is heard, as the sightless lead finds some Eng- 
lish breast. This augments the blind horror 
of the hour. 

The trapped English reply in a desultory 
fashion, and make a bad matter worse. The 
hunting-shirt men' locate them by the flash of 
their guns, at which they shoot with incredible 
quickness and accuracy. With men falling like 
November's leaves, the English give ground to 
the south, which saves them somewhat from 
both the Carolina and the hunting-shirt men. 

Guessing the English direction, the hunting- 
shirt men follow, loading and firing as they ad- 
vance. Now and then a hunting-shirt man 
overtakes an individual foe, and settles the na- 
tional differences which divide them with toma- 
172 




1 



Major-General Andrew Jackson at New Orleans 
From a painting by Chap pel. 



THE BATTLE IN THE DARK 

hawk and knife. It Is cruel work — this unsee- 
ing bloodshed in the dark, and disturbingly new 
to the English, who express their dislike for it. 

While the hunting-shirt men drive the Eng- 
lish along the fringe of the cypress swamp, the 
General, a half mile nearer the river, is work- 
ing his two field pieces. Affairs proceed to his 
warlike satisfaction — and this is saying a deal 
for one so insatiate in matters of blood — until 
a flying ounce of lucky English lead wounds a 
horse on the number two gun. This brings 
present relief to those English in the General's 
front; for the hurt animal upsets the gun into 
the ditch. It takes fifteen minutes to put it 
on its proper wheels again. The accident dis- 
gruntles the General; but he bears it with what 
philosophy he may, and in good truth is pleased 
to find that the gun carriage has not been 
smashed In the upset. 

" Save the gun! " Is his word to the artillery 
men; and when It Is saved he praises them. 

At the booming signal from the Carolina, 
the intrepid Papa Plauche cries out: 

"Forwards, brave Fathers of Families! 
Forwards, heroes ! " 

The " Fathers " respond, and go on with the 
hunting-shirt men. But their pace Is sedate; 
173 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

and this last results in an impoliteness which 
disturbs the excellent Papa Plauche to the core. 

The hunting-shirt men are, for the major 
portion, riotous young blades from the back- 
woods. Moreover, they are used to this prowl- 
ing warfare of the night. Is it wonder then 
that they advance more rapidly than does Papa 
Plauche with his " Fathers," whose step is 
measured and dignified as becomes the heads 
of households? 

Thus it befalls that, do their dignified best, 
Papa Plauche and his " Fathers " are left be- 
hind by the hunting-shirt men, who, deploying 
more and still more to the left, extend them- 
selves in front of Papa Plauche. This does 
not suit the latter's hardy tastes, and he frets 
ferociously. He grows condemnatory, as the 
spitting rifle flashes show him that the vain- 
glorious hunting-shirt men are between him and 
those English whom he hungers to destroy. In- 
deed, he fumes like tiger cheated of its prey. 

" But we shall extricate ourselves, neighbor 
St. Geme ! " cries Papa Plauche. " We shall 
yet extricate ourselves! Behold!" 

The " Behold ! " is the foreword of certain 
masterly maneuvers by Papa Plauche among 
the sugar stubble. The maneuvers free the far- 
174 



THE BATTLE IN THE DARK 

seeing Papa Plauche and his " Fathers " from 
those obstructive, unmannerly hunting-shirt 
men, who have cut off their advance even in its 
indomitable bud. The " Fathers " being better 
used to shop floors than plowed fields, however, 
make difficult work of it. At last courage has 
its reward, and the " Fathers " uncover their 
dauntless front. 

" Oh, my brave St. Geme ! " cries Papa 
Plauche, when his strategy has put the hunting- 
shirt men on his right, where they belong, 
" nothing can save the caitiff English now ! 
Those ruffians in hunting tunics who pro- 
tected them no longer impede our front. For- 
wards! " 

The final word has hardly issued from be- 
tween the clenched teeth of Papa Plauche 
when a rustling in the stubble apprises him of 
the foe. 

"Fire, Fathers of Families, fire!" shouts 
Papa Plauche, and such is the fury which con- 
sumes him that the shout is no shout, but a 
screech. 

It is enough! One by one each "Father" 
discharges his flintlock. The procession of re- 
ports is rather ragged, and now and again a 
considerable wait occurs between shots, like a 

175 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

great gap in a picket fence. Still, the last 
" Father " finally finds the trigger, and the 
command of Papa Plauche is obeyed. 

The " Fathers " hurt no one by this savage 
volley, for their aim like their hearts is high. 
It is quite as well they do not. The stubble- 
disturbing force in front chances to be none 
other than that half company of regulars, to 
whose rear it seems the inadvertent Papa 
Plauche, in freeing them from the hunting-shirt 
men, has led his " Fathers." The regulars are 
in a towering rage with Papa Plauche; but 
since no one has been injured, and Papa. 
Plauche is profuse in his apologies, their anger 
presently subsides. The regulars again take 
up their bloody work upon the retreating Eng- 
lish, while the discouraged Papa Plauche and 
the ** Fathers," full of confusion and chagrin 
at twice being balked, remain where they are. 

" After all, neighbor St. Geme," observes 
Papa Plauche, " the mistake was theirs. Did 
they not usurp the place which belonged to the 
English, in thus getting in front of us? It 
should teach them to beware how they put 
themselv^es in the path of my ' Fathers,' whose 
wrath is terrible." 

For two black, sightless hours the hunting- 
176 



THE BATTLE IN TK^E DARK 

shirt men crowd the English to th ie south. 
Then the General draws them off. They come, 
bringing as captives one colonel, two majo -.fs, 
three captains, and sixty-four privates. Also" 
they have killed and wounded two hundred and 
thirteen of the English, which comforts them 
marvelously. They themselves have suffered 
but slightly, and the backloads of English guns 
they carry will gladden many an unarmed Ken- 
tucky heart. 

Now when he has them together, the beloved 
Coffee at their head, the General leads the way 
to the thither side of the Roderlquez Canal, 
where he plans a line of breastworks. Ar- 
riving, the weary hunting-shirt men build fires, 
and make themselves easy for the balance of 
the night. 

After a brief rest, the thoughtful General 
detaches a party with one of the field guns, to 
interest the English until daylight. 

" For I think. Coffee," says he, " that If we 
keep them awake, they will be apt to sleep to- 
morrow; and so leave us free to work on our 
defenses." 



\ 



XV 

COTTON BALES AND SUGAR 
CASKS 



CHAPTER XV 

COTTON BALES AND SUGAR CASKS 

IT Is the day before Christmas when the 
General lays out his line for fortifications. 
The Roderiquez Canal is no canal at all, 
but a disused mill race, which an active man can 
leap and any one may wade. The General will 
make a moat of it, and raise his breastworks 
along its mile-length muddy course, between the 
river and the cypress swamp. He keeps an 
army of mules and negroes, with scrapers and 
carts, hard at work, heaping up the earth. A 
boat load of cotton is lying at the levee. The 
cotton bales are rolled ashore, and added to the 
heaped-up earth. This pleases Papa Plauche. 

" It is singular," he remarks to neighbor St. 
Geme, " that cotton, which has been my busi- 
ness support for years, should now defend my 
life." 

There is a low place to the General's front. 
He cuts the levee; and soon the Mississippi 
i8i 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

furnishes three feet of water, to serve as a wet 
drawback to any English advance. The lat- 
ter, however, are not thinking on an advance. 
Supports have come dripping from the swamp, 
and swollen their numbers to threefold the 
General's force; but none the less their hearts 
are weak. That horrifying night attack, when 
their blood was shed in the dark, has broken 
the heart of their vanity, and a paralyzing 
fear of those dangerous hunting-shirt men lies 
all across the English like a cloud. More 
and worse, the Carolina swings downstream, 
abreast of their position, and her broadsides 
drive them to hide in ditches and the cypress 
borders of the swamp. There is no peace, 
no safety, on the flat, stubble ground, while 
light remains by which to point the Carolina's 
guns. 

Nor does nightfall bring relief. Those 
empty-handed Kentuckians must be provided 
for; and, no sooner does the sun go down, 
than the hunting-shirt men by two and three 
go forth in search of English muskets. They 
shoot down sentries, and carry away their dead 
belongings. Does an English group assemble 
round a camp fire, it becomes an invitation sel- 
dom neglected. A party of hunting-shirt men 
182 



COTTON AND SUGAR 

creep within range and begin the butchery. 
There is never the moment, dayhght and dark, 
when the unhappy English are not within the 
icy reach of death. There is no repose, no 
safety ! A chill dread claims them like a palsy ! 

The English complain bitterly at this bush- 
whacking; which, to the hunting-shirt men, 
reared in schools of Indian war, is the merest 
A B c of battle. The harassed English de- 
nounce the General as a barbarian, in whose 
savage bosom burns no spark of chivalry. 
They recall how in their late campaigns In 
Spain, English and French pickets spent peace- 
filled weeks within fifty yards of one another, 
exchanging nothing more deadly than coffee 
and compliments. 

The grim General refuses to be affected by 
the French-English example. He continues to 
pile up his earthworks, while the hunting-shirt 
men go forth to pot nightly English as usual. 
The situation wears away the courage of the 
English to a white and paper thinness. 

While the General is fortifying his lines, 
and the hunting-shirt men are stalking English 
sentinels, peace is signed in Europe between 
America and England. But Europe is far 
away; and there is no Atlantic cable. And so 
13 183 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

the General continues at his congenial labors 
undisturbed. 

Christmas does not go unrecognized in the 
General's camp. He himself attempts nothing 
of festival sort, and only drives his fortifying 
mules and negroes the harder. But the hunt- 
ing-shirt men celebrate by cleaning their rifles, 
molding bullets, refilling powder horns, and 
whetting knives and tomahawks to a more 
lethal edge. 

As for Papa Plauche and the " Fathers of 
Families," they become jocund. Their wives 
and daughters purvey them roast fowls in little 
wicker baskets, and the warmest wines of Bur- 
gundy In bottles. Whereupon Papa Plauche 
and his " Fathers " wax blithe and merry, 
singing the songs of France and talking of old 
loves. 

And now Sir Edward Pakenham arrives, and 
relieves General Keane In command of the 
English. With him comes General Gibbs. The 
two listen to the reports of General Keane, and 
shrug polite shoulders as he speaks of the 
savage valor of the Americans. It is prepos- 
terous that peasants clad in skins, and not a 
bayonet among them, should check the flower 
of England. General Keane does not reply to 
184 



COTTON AND SUGAR 

the polite shrug. He reflects that the General, 
with his hunting-shirt men, can be relied upon 
to later make convincing answer. 

Upon the morning which follows the advent 
of General Pakenham, the English see a mo- 
ment of good fortune. A red-hot shot sets fire 
to the Carolina, as she swings downstream on 
her cable for that daily bombardment, and 
burns her to the water line. This cheers the 
English mightily; and does not discourage 
Commodore Patterson, who transfers his ac- 
tivities to the decks of the Louisiana. 

Sir Edward gives the General three uninter- 
rupted days. This the latter warrior improves 
so far as to rear his earthworks to a height 
of four feet, and mount five guns. On the 
fourth day the English are led out to the as- 
sault. Sir Edward does not say so, but he 
expects to march over those four-foot walls of 
mud and cotton bales as he might over any 
other casual four-foot obstruction, and go up 
to the city beyond. 

The sequel does not justify Sir Edward's 
optimism. The moment the English approach 
within two hundred yards of the General's line, 
a sheet of fire hisses all along. The English 
melt away like smoke. They break and run, 
185 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

seeking refuge in the cross ditches which drain 
the stubble lands. Once in the ditches, they 
are made to sit fast by the watchful hunting- 
shirt men, whose aim is death and who shoot 
at every exposed two square inches of English 
flesh and blood. 

All day the English must crouch in the sav- 
ing mud and water of those ditches, and it 
rufiles their self-regard. With darkness for a 
shield. Sir Edward brings them off. He ex- 
plains the disaster to his staff by calling it a 
" reconnoissance." General Keane also calls it a 
" reconnoissance " ; but there is a satisfied grin 
on his war-worn face. Sir Edward has received 
a taste of the mettle of those " peasants," and 
may now take a more tolerant, and less politely 
cynical, view of what earlier setbacks were ex- 
perienced by General Keane. As for the sev- 
enty dead who lie, faces to the quiet stars, 
among the sugar stubble, they say nothing. 
And whether it be called a " reconnoissance " 
or a defeat matters little to them. 

"What do you think of it?" asks Sir Ed- 
ward of his friend, General Gibbs, as the two 
confer over a bottle of port. 

" Sir Edward," returns the General, " I 
should call a council of war." 
i86 



COTTON AND SUGAR 

Sir Edward winces. It is too great an honor 
for the brother-in-law of Lord Wellington to 
pay a " Copper Captain " like the General. 
For all that he calls it; and the call assembles, 
besides Generals Gibbs and Keane, those salt- 
water soldiers, Admirals Cochrane, Codrington 
and Malcolm, and Captain Hardy whom Nel- 
son loved. Sir John Burgoyne, the chief of the i 
English engineers, is also there. The solemn 
debate lasts hours. The decision Is to regard 
the General's position as " A walled and forti- 
fied place, to be reduced by regular and formal 
approaches." Which Is flattering to the Gen- 
eral's engineering skill. 

The council breaks up. The next morning 
Sir John Burgoyne commits a stroke of genius. 
He rolls out of the storehouses to the English 
rear countless hogsheads of sugar. Night sets 
in, foggy and black. Under Its protecting 
cover, Sir John trundles his hundreds of hogs- 
heads to a point not six hundred yards from 
the General's mud walls. Till daybreak the 
English work. They set the hogsheads on 
end — four close-packed thicknesses of them, 
two tier high. Ingenious portholes are left to 
receive the muzzles of the guns, and thirty 
cannon, which have been dragged through the 
187 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

cypress swamp from the fleet, are placed in 
position. 

Those hogsheads of sugar, with the thirty 
black muzzles frowning forth, impress folk as 
a most formidable fortalice, when the upshooting 
sun rolls back the fog and offers a view of them. 
The General, however, does not hesitate; he 
instantly opens with his five, and the thirty 
guns of the English bellow their iron response. 
Hardly a whit behind the General, the active 
Commodore Patterson drops downstream with 
the Louisiana, and throws the weight of her 
broadsides against the English. 

The big-gun duel is hot and furious, and the 
rolling clouds of powder smoke shut out the 
fighters from one another. They do not pause 
for that, but fire blindly through the smoke, 
sighting their guns by guess. When the smoke 
has cloaked the scene, Sir Edward orders two 
columns of the English foot to storm the Gen- 
eral's mud walls. 

The columns advance, and run headforemost 
into the hunting-shirt men. The sleety rain of 
lead which greets them rolls the columns up 
like two red carpets. The recoiling columns 
break, and the English take cover for a second 
time in those saving ditches. They declare 
i88 



COTTON AND SUGAR 

among themselves that mortal man might more 
easily face the fires of hell itself, than the 
flame-filled muzzles of the hunting-shirt men, 
who seem to be Death's very agents upon 
earth. 

As the broken English crouch in those 
ditches the fire of Sir John Burgoyne's big guns 
begins to falter. The smoke is so thick that no 
one may tell the cause. At last the English 
volleys altogether end, and the General orders 
Dominique and Bluche, with their swarthy 
pirate crews from Barrataria, and what other 
artillerists are serving his quintette of guns, to 
cease their stormy work. With that a silence 
falls on both sides. 

The breeze from the river tears the smoky 
veil aside; and lo! that noble fortification of 
sugar hogsheads is heaped and piled in ruins. 
The General's solid shot go through and 
through those hogsheads of sugar, as though 
they are hogsheads of snow. Five of the thirty 
English guns are smashed. The proud work 
of Sir John Burgoyne presents a spectacle of 
desolation, while the English who serve the 
batteries go flying for their lives. Not all ! 
The three-score dead remain — the only English 
whose honor is saved that day I 
189 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Sir Edward's cheek is white as death. He 
blames Sir John Burgoyne, who has erred, he 
says, in constructing the works. Sir John did 
err, and Sir Edward is right. Forty years 
later, the same Sir John will repeat the same 
mistake at Sebastapol; which shows how there 
be Bourbons among the English, learning noth- 
ing, forgetting nothing. 

As the English skulk in clusters, and ragged, 
beaten groups for their old position beyond the 
General's long reach, the fear of death is writ- 
ten on their faces. It will take a long rest, 
and much must be forgotten, e'er they may 
be brought front to front with the General 
again. 

Among the hunting-shirt men are exultation 
and crowing triumph. Only Papa Plauche is 
sad. During the fight, the cotton bales in 
front of Papa Plauche and the " Fathers " are 
sorely knocked about. As though this be not 
enough, what must a felon hot shot do but set 
one of them ablaze! The smoke fills the noses 
of Papa Plauche and his " Fathers," and 
makes them sneeze. It burns their eyes until 
the tears the *' Fathers " shed might make one 
think them engaged upon the very funeral of 
Papa Plauche himself. 

190 



COTTON AND SUGAR 

In the tearful sneezing midst of this an- 
guish, a vagrant flying flake of cotton, all afire, 
explodes an ammunition wagon to the heroic 
rear of Papa Plauche and the " Fathers," and 
the shock is as the awful shock of doom. 

The fortitude of Hercules would fail at such 
a pinch! Papa Plauche and the "Fathers" 
actually and for the moment think on flight! 
But whither shall they fly? They are caught 
between Satan and a deepest sea — the ammuni- 
tion wagon and the English ! Also to the right, 
plying sponge and rammer, are the pirate Bar- 
ratarians who are as bad as the English! 
While to the left is the General, who Is worse 
than the ammunition wagon. 

"It is written!" murmurs Papa Plauche; 
" our fate Is sure ! We must perish where we, 
stand! " Papa Plauche extends his hands, and 
cries: " Courage, my heroes! Give your hearts 
to heaven, your fanie to posterity, and show 
history how ' Fathers of Families ' can die! " 

From the cypress swamp a last detachment 
of reenforcements emerges, and meets the 
beaten English coming back. General Lam- 
bert, with the reenforcements, is shocked as he 
reads their broken-hearted story in their eyes. 

"What Is It, Colonel?" he whispers to 
191 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Colonel Dale of the Highlanders. " In heav- 
en's name, what stopped you? " 

"Bullets, mon ! '•' returns the Scotchman. 
" Naught but bullets! The fire of those de'ils 
in lang shirts wud 'a' stopped Caesar himsel' ! " 



XVI 
THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY 

BACK to his negroes and mules and carts 
and scrapers goes the General, and sets 
them to renewed hard labor on those 
Immortal mud walls which he will never get 
too high. Those cotton bales, so distressing to 
Papa Plauche and the " Fathers," are elimina- 
ted, at which that paternal commander breathes 
freer. The hunting-shirt men, with each going 
down of the sun, resume their nighthawk par- 
ties, which swoop upon English sentinels, taking 
lives and guns. 

The English themselves are a prey to dejec- 
tion. The foe against whom they war is so 
strange, so savage, so sleepless, so coldly invet- 
erate ! Also those incessant night attacks sap 
their manhood. They build no fires now, but 
sit in darkness through the nights. A fire is 
but the attractive prelude to a shower of noc- 
turnal lead, and the woefully lengthening list 

195 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

of dead and wounded tells strongly against it. 
To even light a cigar after dark is an approach 
to suicide; and so the English wrap themselves 
in blackness — very miserable ! Their earlier 
horror of the hunting-shirt men is increased; 
for they have three times studied backwoods 
marksmanship from the standpoint of targets, 
and the dumb chill about their heart-roots is 
a testimony to its awful accuracy. 

The General, who reads humanity as astron- 
omers read the heavens, is not wanting in no- 
tions of the gloom which envelops the English 
like a funeral pall. 

" Coffee," says he, at one of those famous 
war councils of two, " in their souls we have 
them beaten. They will fight again; but only 
from pride. Their hope is gone, Coffee; we 
have broken their hearts." 

The reports of the General's scouts teach 
him that the English will put a force across 
the river. In anticipation, he dispatches Com- 
modore Patterson, with a mixed command of 
soldiers and sailors, to fortify the west bank. 
Commodore Patterson emulates the General's 
four-foot mud walls and throws up a re- 
doubt of his own, mounting thereon twelve 
eighteen-pounders taken from the Louisiana. 
196 



THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY 

He tries one on the English opposite. The re- 
sult is gratifying; the gum pitches a solid shot 
all across the Mississippi and into the English 
lines. 

Eight days pass by in Indian file, and Sir 
Edward Pakenham with his English feels that, 
for his safety as much as his honor, he must 
attack the General, whose mud walls increase 
with each new sunset. The General foresees 
this, and has reports of Sir Edward's movements 
brought him every hour. 

On the morning of the eighth the General's 
scouts wake him at two o'clock and say that 
the English are astir. He is instantly abroad; 
the word goes down the line; by four o'clock 
every rifle is ready, each hunting-shirt man at 
his post. 

The weak spot, the one at which Sir Edward 
will level his utmost force, is where the Gen- 
eral's line finds an end in the moss-hung 
cypress swamp. It is there he stations the re- 
liable Coffee with his hunting-shirt men. To 
the rear, as a reserve, is General Adair with 
what Kentuckians the good, unerring offices of 
those night-prowling hunting-shirt men have 
armed at the red expense of the English. 
In the center is the redoubtable Papa Plauche 
197 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

and his " Fathers." The " Fathers " are be- 
tween the pirates Dominique and Bluche and 
Captain Humphries of the regular artillery. 

Papa Plauche is rejoiced at being thus 
thrust into the center. 

"For my heroes!" cries Papa Plauche, in 
a speech which he makes the " Fathers," " the 
center is the heart — the home of honor ! On 
us, my Fathers, devolves the main defense of 
our beloved city, where sleep our wives and 
children. Wherefore, be brave as vigilant — 
vigilant as brave! " 

Papa Plauche's voice is husky, but not from 
fear. No, it is husky by reason of a cold which, 
despite certain woolen nightcaps wherewith the 
excellent Madam Plauche equipped him for the 
field, he has contracted in sleeping damply 
among the stubble and the river fogs. 

Six hundred yards in front of the General's 
mud walls, and near the river, are a huddle of 
plantation buildings. The English, he argues, 
will mask a part of their advance with these 
structures. The forethoughtful General pre- 
pares for this, and has furnaces heating shot, 
to set those buildings blazing at the psycho- 
logical moment. 

Also, in response to a comic cynicism not 
198 



THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY 

usual with him, he has out the brass band of 
Papa Plauche, with instructions to strike up 
*' Yankee Doodle " as the first gun is fired. 
The band, In compHment to the General, has 
been privily rehearsing " 'Possum up a Gum 
Tree," which it understands is the national an- 
them of Tennessee, and offers to play that. 

The General thanks the band, but declines 
" 'Possum up a Gum Tree." It will not be 
understood by the English; whereas "Yankee 
Doodle " they have known and loathed for 
forty years. 

" Give 'em ' Yankee Doodle,' " says the Gen- 
eral. " Since they are so eager to dance, we'll 
furnish the proper music." 

Sir Edward is as soon afoot as is the Gen- 
eral. He finds his English steady yet dull; 
they will fight, but not with spirit. As the 
General assured the conferring Coffee, the 
hunting-shirt men, with their long rifles like 
wands of death, have broken the English heart. 

The English are to advance in three col- 
umns; General Keane on the right with Ren- 
nie's Rifles, in the center Dale's Highlanders, 
on the left, where the main attack is to be 
launched. General GIbbs, with three thousand 
of tne pride of England at his back. General 
14 199 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Lambert is to hold himself in the rear of Gen- 
eral Gibbs, with two regiments as a reserve. 
As the columns form, there are eighty-five 
hundred of the English; against which the 
General opposes a scanty thirty-two hundred. 
And yet, upon those overpowering eighty-five 
hundred hangs a silence like a sadness, as 
though they are about to go marching to their 
graves. 

The solemn fear in which the English hold 
the hunting-shirt men finds pathetic evidence. 
As the columns wheel into position. Colonel 
Dale of the Highlanders gives a letter and his 
watch to the surgeon. 

*' Carry them to my wife," says he, " and 
tell her that I died at the head of my regi- 
ment." 

The Forty-fourth is told off to lead the main 
attack, and Colonel Mullins breaks into hys- 
terical anger. 

" My regiment," he cries, " has been or- 
dered for execution ! Our dead bodies are to 
fill the ditch, and form a bridge for the others 
to cross upon ! " 

Sir Duncan Campbell comes among his 
Highlanders, wrapped in a cloak. Some one 
suggests that he lay it aside. 
200 




o 



o q 



23 ■-= 



< fc 



THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY 

" Never! " says he; " Til peel for no Ameri- 
can ! " and twenty-four hours later he is buried 
in that cloalc. 

The English stand to their arms, and wait 
the breaking of day. Slowly the minutes drag 
their leaden length along; morning comes at 
last. 

With the first streaks of livid dawn, a con- 
greve rocket flashes skyward from Sir Edward's 
headquarters. The rocket is the English sig- 
nal to advance. In a moment, General Gibbs, 
General Keane, and Colonel Dale with his 
*' praying " Highlanders are in motion. 

The signal rocket uncouples thousands upon 
thousands of fellow rockets; the air is on fire 
with them as they blaze aloft in mighty arcs, 
to fall and explode among the hunting-shirt 
men. 

" Toys for children, boys," cries the Gen- 
eral, as he observes the hunting-shirt men 
watching the flaming shower with curious, 
non-understanding eyes; "toys for children! 
They'll hurt no one!" 

The General is right. Those congreve rock- 
ets are supposed to be as deadly as artillery. 
Like many another commodity of war, how- 
ever, meant primarily to fatten contractors, 

201 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

they prove as Innocuous as so many huge fire- 
flies. The hunting-shirt men laugh at them. 
The battery of eighteen-pounders, wherewith 
the English second that flight of rockets, is a 
more serious affair. 

As the sun shoots up above the cypress 
swamp and rolls back the mists of morning, 
the English make a gallant picture. The dull 
yellow of the stubble in front of the General's 
line is gay with splotches of red and gray and 
green and tartan, the colors of the various Eng- 
lish corps. 

The hunting-shirt men, however, are not 
given much space for admiration; for, with one 
grand crash, the big guns go into action and 
the red-green-gray-tartan picture is swallowed 
up in powder smoke. Also, it is now that Papa 
Plauche's band blares forth " Yankee Doodle," 
while those anticipatory hot shot set fire to 
the plantation buildings. As the latter burst 
out at door and window in smoke and flames, 
Colonel Rennie and his riflemen are driven 
into the open. The conflagration gets much 
in the English way, and spoils the drill-room 
nicety of Sir Edward's onset as he has it 
planned. 

Colonel Rennie, being capable of brisk de- 

202 



THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY 

cislon, makes the best of a disconcerting situa- 
tion. When the flames and smoke from those 
fired plantation buildings drive him into the 
open before he is ready, he promptly orders 
a charge. This his riflemen obey; for the in- 
exorable Patterson, across the river, is already 
upon them with those eighteen-pounders, and 
his solid shot are mowing ghastly swaths through 
the rifle-green ranks, tossing dead men in the 
air like old bags. With so little inducement 
to stand still, the riflemen hail that word to 
charge as a relief, and head for the General's 
mud walls at double quick. 

The oncoming Colonel Rennie and his Eng- 
lish are met full in the face by a tempest of 
grape, from Major Humphrey and the pirates 
Dominique and Bluche, which throws them 
backward upon themselves. They bunch up 
and clot into lumps of disorder, like clumps of 
demoralized sheep in rifle-green. At that, 
Commodore Patterson serves his eighteen- 
pounders with multiplied speed, and the great 
balls tear those sheep-clumps to pieces, stain- 
ing with crimson the rifle-green. The English 
marvel at the artillery work of the General's 
men, whose every shot comes on, well aimed 
and low, bringing death in its whistling wake. 
203 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

They should reflect: The theory, not to say the 
eye, which aims a squirrel rifle will point a 
cannon. 

Colonel Rennie, when his English recoil, 
keeps on — face red with grief and rage. 

" It's my time to die ! " says he to Captain 
Henry. " But before I die, I shall at least see 
the inside of those mud walls." 

Colonel Rennie is wrong. A bullet finds his 
brain as he lifts his head above the breastworks, 
and he slips back dead in the ditch outside. 
Major King and Captain Henry die with him, 
pierced each by a handful of bullets. 

When the English flinch and Colonel Ren- 
nie falls, the bugler — a boy of fourteen — 
climbs a tree, not one hundred yards from the 
General's line. Perched among the branches, 
he sounds his dauntless charges. The General 
gives orders to let the boy alone. And so the 
little bugler, protected by the word of the 
General, sings his shrill onsets to the last. 

Finally an artillery-man goes out to him. 

" Come down, my son ! " says the cannoneer. 
" The war's about over! " 

The little bugler comes down, and Is at once 
taken to the fatherly heart of Papa Plauche, who 
declares him to be a sucking Hector, and is for 
204 



THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY 

adopting him as his son on the spot, but is 
restrained by thoughts of Madam Plauche. 

Sir Edward's main assault, with General 
Gibbs, meets no fairer fortune than falls to 
Colonel Rennie by the river. Confusion pre- 
vails on the threshold of the movement; for 
Colonel Mullins with his Forty-fourth refuses 
to go forward. Later he will be courtmartialed, 
and dismissed in disgrace. Just now, how- 
ever, the recreant makes a shameful tangle of 
the English van. As a quickest method of set- 
ting the tangle straight, General Gibbs, as did 
Colonel Rennie, orders a charge. The column 
moves forward, the mutinous Forty-fourth on 
the right flank, led by its major. 

General Gibbs advances, brushing with the 
shoulder of his corps, the cypress swamp. Be- 
hind the mud walls in his front, the steady 
hunting-shirt men are waiting. The General 
is there, to give the latter patience and hold 
them in even check. 

" Easy, boys ! " he cries. " Remember your 
ranges ! Don't fire until they are within two 
hundred yards ! " 

On rush the English. At six hundred yards 
they are met by the fire of the artillery. They 
heed it not, but press sullenly forward, closing 
205 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

up the gaps in their ranks, where the solid shot 
go crashing through, as fast as made. Five 
hundred yards, four hundred, three hundred! 
Still they come ! Two hundred yards ! 

And now the hunting-shirt men ! A line of 
fire unending glances from right to left and left 
to right, along the crest of those mud walls, 
and Death begins his reaping. The head of 
the English column burns away, as though 
thrust into a furnace ! The column wavers 
and welters like a red ship in a murky sea of 
smoke ! It pauses, falteringly — disdaining to 
fly, yet unable to advance ! 

" Forward, men ! " shouts General Gibbs. 
" This is the way you should go ! " 

As he points with his sword to those terrible 
mud walls, he falls riddled by the hunting-shirt 
men. 



XVII 

THE SLAUGHTER AMONG THE 
STUBBLE 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE SLAUGHTER AMONG THE STUBBLE 

WHEN the main advance begins, Sir 
Edward is in the center with the 
Highlanders. The latter are not 
to move until he has word of their success from 
General Keane with Rennie's rifle corps, and 
General Gibbs with the main column — the one 
by the river and the other by the cypress 
swamp. He has not long to wait; a courier 
dashes up from the river — eye haggard, dis- 
order in his look I 

"General Keane?" cries Sir Edward, his 
apprehension on edge. 

" Fallen! " returns the courier hoarsely. 

"And Rennie?" 

" Dead. The Rifles are in full retreat! " 

Sir Edward stands like one stricken. Then 
he pulls himself together. 

" Bring on your Highlanders ! " he cries 
to Colonel Dale. " We must force their lines 
209 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

in front of General Gibbs. It is our only 
chance ! " 

Sir Edward dashes across to General Gibbs, 
in the shadow of that significant cypress swamp. 
He sees General Gibbs go down ! He sees 
the red column torn and twisted by that 
storm of lead which the hunting-shirt men 
unloose. 

As the English reel away from those low- 
flying messengers of death, Sir Edward seeks to 
rally them. 

"Are you Englishmen?" he cries. "Have 
you but marched upon a battlefield to stain the 
glory of your flag? " 

Sir Edward's gesticulating arm falls, smashed 
by a bullet from some sharp-shooting hunting- 
shirt man. He seems not to know his hurt! 
He is on fire with the thought that those hon- 
ors, won upon forty fields, are to be wrested 
from him by a " Copper Captain," backed by a 
mob of peasants in buckskin ! He rushes among 
the shaken English to check the panic which is 
seizing them ! 

The Highlanders come up ! 

"Hurrah! brave Highlanders!" he shouts. 

At Sir Edward's welcoming shout, Colonel 
Dale waves a salute ! It is his last; the hunting- 

2IO 



AMONG THE STUBBLE 

shirt men are upon him with those unerring 
rifles, and he falls dead before his General's 
eyes. Coincident with the fall of his beloved 
Dale, Sir Edward is struck by a second bullet. 
It enters near the heart. As his aide catches 
him in his arms, he beckons feebly to Sir John 
Tylden. 

" Call up Lambert with the reserves! " he 
whispers. 

As he lies supported in the arms of his aide, 
a third bullet puffs out his lamp of life, and 
England loses a second Sir Philip Sidney. 

The main column falls into renewed disor- 
der! It begins to retreat; the retreat becomes 
a rout ! Only the Highlanders stay ! They 
cannot go forward; they will not go back! 
There they stand rooted, until five hundred and 
forty of their nine hundred and fifty are shot 
down. 

As the main column breaks, Major Wilkin- 
son turns to Lieutenant Lavack. 

" This is too much disgrace to take home ! " 
says he. 

Like Colonel Rennie, a mile away by the 
river. Major Wilkinson charges the mud walls. 
Lieutenant Lavack, sharing his feelings, shares 
with him that desperate, disgrace-defying 

211 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

charge. Through the singing, droning " zip ! 
zip ! " of the bullets, they press on ! They 
reach the ditch, and splash through ! Up the 
mud walls they swarm! Major Wilkinson 
falls inside, dead, three times shot through and 
through ! Lieutenant Lavack, with a luck that 
is like a charm, lands in the midst of the 
hunting-shirt men without a scratch ! They re- 
ceive him hilariously, offer whisky and compli- 
ments, and assure him that they like his style. 
Lieutenant Lavack accepts the whisky and the 
compliments, and gains distinction as the one 
live Englishman over the General's mud walls 
this January day. 

The field is swept of hostile English; all is 
silent in front, and not a shot is heard. Now 
when the firing Is wholly on one side, the Gen- 
eral passes the word for the hunting-shirt men 
to cease. 

The hard-working Coffee comes up, face 
a-smudge of powder stains; for he has been 
taking his turn with a rifle, like any other hunt- 
ing-shirt man. He finds the General as drunk 
on battle as some folk are on brandy. 

"They can't beat us, Coffee!" cries the 
General, wringing his friend's big hand. " By 
the living Eternal they can't beat us! " 

212 




o q 



< ? 

5 5 






o 

t-' 
< 



AMONG THE STUBBLE 

The General unslings his ramshackle tele- 
scope, and leaps upon the mud walls for a 
survey of the field. The less curious Coffee de- 
votes himself to wiping the sweat and powder 
smudges from his face. His Impromptu toilet 
results only In unhappy smears, which make 
him resemble an overgrown sweep. He looks 
at his watch. 

"Sharp, short work!" he mutters, as he 
notes that they have been fighting but twenty- 
five minutes. 

Those plantation buildings are still blazing, 
no more than half-burned down, and the smoke 
hides the scene toward the river. The General 
turns his ramshackle spyglass upon his Imme- 
diate front. The ground is fairly carpeted 
with dead English. As he gazes he calls to 
Colonel Coffee, who Is now broadening the 
powder smears Ingeniously with the sleeve of 
his hunting shirt. 

"Jump up here. Coffee! " cries the General, 
" It's like resurrection day ! " 

Thus urged. Colonel Coffee abandons his at- 
tempts to improve his looks, and joins the Gen- 
eral on the mud walls. He Is In time to be- 
hold four hundred odd Highlanders scramble 
to their brogues among those five hundred and 
213 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

forty who will never march again, and come 
forward to surrender. 

It has been a hot and bloody morning. 
Of those six thousand whom Sir Edward 
takes Into action — for the reserves with Gen- 
eral Lambert are never within range — over 
twenty-one hundred are fallen. Seven hundred 
and thirty are killed as they stand In their 
ranks; and of the fourteen hundred marked 
" wounded," more than six hundred are to die 
within the week. Among the twenty-one hun- 
dred killed and wounded, sixteen hundred go 
to swell the red record of the dire huntlng-shirt 
men. 

The two attacks, being at the ends of the 
General's lines, Involve no more than two-thirds 
of his thirty-two hundred. Papa Plauche's 
" Fathers " In the center, as well as General 
Adair's Kentucklans who act as reserves, are 
merest spectators. 

That his " Fathers " are not called upon to 
fire a shot, In no wise depresses Papa Plauche. 
He harangues his brave followers, and elo- 
quently explains : 

" It is because of your sanguinary fame, my 
heroes!" vociferates Papa Plauche. "The 
English knew your position, and avoided you. 
214 



AMONG THE STUBBLE 

They went as far to the right and to the left 
as they could, to escape that destruction you else 
would have infallibly meted out to them. Ah ! 
my ' Fathers,' see what it is to have a ter- 
rible name ! You must sit idle In battle, because 
no foe dare engage you! Be comforted, my 
glorious heroes! Achilles could have done no 
more! 

Colonel Coffee, still busy with the powder 
smears, calls the General's attention to an Eng- 
lish group of three, made up of a colonel, a 
bugler, and a soldier bearing a white flag. The 
trio halt six hundred respectful yards away. 
The bugler sounds a fanfare ; the soldier waves 
his white flag. 

The General dispatches Colonel Butler with 
two captains to receive their message. It is a 
note signed " Lambert," asking an armistice of 
twenty-four hours to bury the dead. 

"Who is Lambert? " asks the General, and 
sends to the English colonel, with his bugler 
and white flag, to find out. 

The three presently return; this time the 
note is signed " John Lambert, Commander-in- 
Chief." The alteration proves to the General's 
liking, and the armistice is arranged. 

The seven hundred and thirty dead English 
15 215 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

are burled where they fell. Thereafter the 
superstitious blacks will defy lash and torture 
rather than plow the land where they lie. It 
will raise no more sugar cane; but in time a 
cypress grove will sorrowfully cover It, as 
though in mournful memory of those who sleep 
beneath. The General carries his own dead to 
the city. They are not many, four dead and 
four wounded being the limit of his loss. 

General Lambert and the beaten English go 
wallowing, hip-deep, through the swamps to 
their boats. They will not fight again. The 
booming of the batteries, or mayhap the un- 
usual warmth of the sun, has roused from their 
winter beds a scaly host of alligators. These 
saurians uplift their hideous heads and gaze 
sleepily, yet inquisitively, at the wallowing re- 
treating English. Now and then one widely 
yawns, and the spectacle sends an icy thrill 
along what English spines bear witness to it. 

In the end the beaten English are all 
departed. That tremendous invasion which, 
with " Beauty and Booty! " for its cry, sailed 
out of Negrll Bay six weeks before to the sack 
of New Orleans, is abandoned, and the last de- 
feated man jack once more aboard the ships 
and mighty glad to be there. The fleet sails 
216 



AMONG THE STUBBLE 

south and east; but not until the tallest ship is 
hull down in the horizon does the General 
march Into New Orleans. 

The General cannot bring himself to believe 
that the retreat of the English is genuine. 
They have still, as they sail away, full thirteen 
thousand fighting men aboard those ships, with 
a round one thousand cannon, and munitions 
and provisions for a year's campaign. He 
judges them by himself, and will not be con- 
vinced that they have fled. With this on his 
mind, he plants his pickets far and wide, and 
insists on double vigilance. 

Now when fear of the English is rolled 
like a stone from their breasts, the folk of New 
Orleans fret under the General's iron rule. 
With that the prudent General tightens his 
grip. Even so excellent a soldier as Papa 
Plauche complains. He says that the hearts of 
the " Fathers of Families " are bursting with 
victory. His valiant " Fathers " burn to ex- 
press their joy. 

The General suggests that the joy-swollen 
" Fathers " repair to the Cathedral, and hear 
the Abbe Duborg conduct a Te Deum. 

Papa Plauche points out that, while a Te 
Deum is all very well in its way, it is a rite and 
217 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

not a festival. What his " Fathers " — who are 
thunderbolts of war! — desire is to give a ball. 

The General says that he has no objections to 
the ball. 

Papa Plauche explains that a ball is not pos- 
sible, with the city held fast in the controlling 
coils of military law. The rule that all lights 
must be out at nine o'clock, of itself forbids 
a ball. As affairs stand the " Fathers " are 
helpless in their happiness. No one may dance 
by daylight; that would be too fantastic, too 
bizarre ! And yet who, pray, can rejoice in the 
dark? It is against human nature, argues Papa 
Plauche. 

The General refuses to be moved; but con- 
tinues to hold the city in his unrelenting clutch 
— maintaining the while a wary eye for sly re- 
turning English, with an occasional glance at 
the local treason which is simmering about him. 

The public murmur grows louder and 
deeper. A rumor of the peace comes ashore, 
no one knows how. The General refuses the 
rumor, fearing an English ruse to throw him 
off his guard. At the peace whisper, the popu- 
lar discontent increases. The General, in the 
teeth of it, remains unchanged. 

Citizen Hollander expresses himself with 
2i8 



AMONG THE STUBBLE 

more heat than prudence. The General locks 
up the vituperative Citizen Hollander. M. 
Toussand, Consul for France, considers such ac- 
tion high-handed; and says so. The General 
marches Consul Toussand out of town, with a 
brace of bayonets at the consular back. Leg- 
islator Louaillier protests against the casting 
out of Consul Toussand. The General con- "^ 
signs the protesting Legislator Louaillier to a 
cell in the calaboose. Jurist Hall of the Dis- 
trict Court issues a writ of habeas corpus for 
the relief and release of the captive Louaillier. 
The General responds by arresting Jurist Hall, 
who is given a cell between captives Louaillier 
and Hollander, where by raising his voice he 
may condole with them through the intervening 
stone walls. 

Thus are affairs arranged when official notice 
of the peace reaches the General from Wash- 
ington. Instantly he withdraws his grip from 
the city, restores the civil rule, and releases 
from captivity Jurist Hall, Citizen Hollander, 
and Legislator Louaillier. 

Upon the disappearance of martial law. 

Papa Plauche, with his Immortal " Fathers of 

Families," gives that ball of victory, the exiled 

Consul Toussand creeps back into town, while 

219 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Jurist Hall signalizes his restoration to the 
woolsack by fining the General one thousand 
dollars for contempt of court — which he pays. 

The Legislature, guards withdrawn from its 
treasonable doors, expands into lawmaking. 
Its earliest action is a resolution of thanks for 
their brave defense of the city to officers 
Coffee, Carroll, Hinds, Adair, and Patterson. 
The Legislature pointedly does not thank the 
General, who grins dryly. 

Colonel Coffee, upon receiving the vote of 
thanks, writes a letter of acknowledgment, in 
which he intimates his opinions of the General, 
the Legislature, and himself. This missive is 
a remarkable outburst on the part of Colonel 
Coffee, who fights more easily than he writes, 
and shows how he is stirred to his hunting-shirt 
depths. 

Through the clouds of pestiferous jurists and 
treason-hatching legislators descends a grand 
burst of sunshine. The blooming Rachel, as 
unlooked for as an angel, joins her gaunt hero 
in New Orleans, and the General forgets alike 
his triumphs and his troubles. 

Papa Plauche — foremost in peace as in war 
— at once seizes on the advent of the blooming 
Rachel to give another ball. The whole city 
220 



AMONG THE STUBBLE 

attends the function; the heroic " Fathers" In 
full panoply and very splendid. The band 
plays " 'Possum up a Gum Tree," In the execu- 
tion whereof It soars to vanest heights. 

Papa Plauche dances with the blooming 
^Rachel. The General unbuckles In certain In- 
tricate breakdowns, with which he challenged 
admiration In those days long ago when he was 
the beau of old Salisbury and read law with 
Spruce McCay. The " Fathers " are not only 
edified but excited by the General's dancing; 
for he dances as he fights, violently. 

Colonel Coffee, not being a dancing man, 
goes looking about him. He discovers a flower- 
piece, prepared by Papa Plauche, that Is like unto 
a piece of flattery, and spells " Jackson and 
Victory ! " In deepest red and green. He shows 
It to the General, who suggests that If Papa 
Plauche had made It " Hickory and Victory! " 
It would mean the same, and save the euphony. 

While the blooming Rachel, the General, 
the non-dancing Coffee, and the ardent Papa 
Plauche, with the beauty and chivalry of New 
Orleans about them, are at the ball. Colonel 
Burr, gray and bent and cynical. Is talking with 
his friend Swartwout In far-away New York. 

" It was a glorious, a most convincing vlc- 

221 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

tory! " exclaims Mr. Swartwout. " President 
Madison cannot do the General too much 
-f^ honor. He has saved the country! " 

" He has saved," returns the ironical Colonel 
Burr, " what President Madison holds in much 
greater esteem. He has saved the Madison ad- 
ministration I " 



4 



XVIII 
ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME 



CHAPTER XVIII 

ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME 

THE General, the blooming Rachel by 
his side, takes up his homeward 
journey. Now when they are on 
their way and a world has time to observe 
them, it is to be noted that changes have be- 
fallen with the lengthened flight of time. The 
eye of the blooming Rachel is as liquidly black 
and deep, her hair as raven-blue, her cheek as 
round as on a rearward day when she won the 
heart of that bottle-green beau from old Salis- 
bury. The alteration is in her form, which has 
grown plump and full and stout in these her 
matronly middle years. As to the bottle-green 
beau, his sandy hair is deeply shot with iron- 
gray, while his features show haggard, and 
seamed of care. To the inquiring eye he looks 
at once dangerous and rusty, like an old sword. 
His form, always spare, is more emaciated than 
ever. The last is due in part to those Benton 
bullets, and the Dickinson shot fired in that 
225 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

poplar, May-sweet wood on a certain Kentucky 
morning. Besides, one is not to forget those 
southern swamps, which have never had fame 
for building a man up. As the General, with 
his blooming Rachel, draws near home, the 
whole Cumberland country rushes forth to 
greet him. 

From that earliest day when Time began 
swinging his scythe In the meadows of hu- 
manity, mankind has owned but two ways of 
honoring a hero. One is the " parade," the 
other is the " dinner." In the one instance, 
half the people march In the middle of the 
street, while the remaining half line the curbs 
and look on. In the other, which has the 
merit of exclusion, a select great few set a board 
with meat and drin^; and then. Installing the 
hero where all may see, they bombard him 
with toasts and speeches and applause. All at- 
tend the " parade " since it Is free. Few avoid 
the dinner, because, besides the honor and the 
honoring, It affords lawful occasion for being 
drunk — a manifest advantage to many in a 
strait-laced community. The General when he 
arrives In Nashville Is exhaustively " paraded " 
and deeply " dined." Also he Is given a sword. 

Now, having been " paraded " and " dined," 
226 




a^tef"^ 



^^r--^-. 



Andrkw Jackson 
From a painting by R. E. W. Earl. 



ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME 

and with honors thick upon him, the General 
sets about his duties as a major general in days 
of peace. General Adair and he have a letter- 
quarrel concerning the courage of Kentuckians. 
General Scott and he have a letter-quarrel on 
grounds more personal. As the upshot of the 
latter correspondence, the General evinces an 
eagerness to shoot his over-epauletted opponent 
at ten paces, oiling up the saw-handles to that 
hopeful end, but is balked by the over-epauletted 
one, who declines on grounds of piety and pa- 
triotism. 

While the General is fuming with ink and 
paper against those distinguished warriors, he 
cools at intervals sufficiently to build the bloom- 
ing Rachel a little church. The blooming 
Rachel is a devout Presbyterian; and, while the 
General is far too busy with this world to 
think much on the next, she prevails with him 
— for he never says " No " to her — to put her 
up a church. It is not much bigger than a dry- 
goods box; but there are forty pews, besides a 
pulpit for Parson Blackburn, and the blooming 
Rachel is supremely happy. She owns to some 
illogical impression that, should the General 
build a church, he'll " join." In this she goes 
wrong; for the General only builds. 
227 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

The General mounts his horse, and rides 
to Washington. He meets Mr. Jefferson in 
Lynchburg, and that aged fine gentleman and 
maker of constitutions is struck by the graceful 
manners of the General, who has become all 
ease and polish where once he was as rough as 
a woods' colt. In Washington he is much feted 
and feasted, and the trump of celebration is 
tireless to sound his name. He gets back home 
in time to put a roof on the blooming Rachel's 
almost finished church, and listen to Parson 
Blackburn's dedicatory sermon. 

The Red Stick Creeks from across the Flori- 
da line take to marauding and murdering in 
Southern Georgia, and the General decides to 
see about it. He sends an officer, with a force 
of men, to reduce Negro Fort on the Ap- 
palachicola. In giving that officer his instruc- 
tions, the General expands touching the military 
virtues of red-hot shots; and with such satis- 
factory results that the first one fired at Ne- 
gro Fort blows it to ruins, and with it three 
hundred and thirty-one of the three hundred 
and thirty-four blacks and reds who infest it. 
Three crawl from the blazing chaos, to be 
hilariously knocked on the head by friendly 
Creeks, who have attended the expedition with 
228 



ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME 

that fond hope and purpose. The world is 
much rejoiced at the demolition of Negro Fort; 
since murder and pillage have been the one 
business of its robber garrison, and the fire- 
torture of prisoners their one amusement. 

The General presently appears at the head 
of his hunting-shirt men, and destroys the vil- 
lage of Chief Billy Bowlegs on the oft-sung 
Suwannee River. Then he takes St. Marks 
from the feeble Spaniards, and arrests a brace 
of conspiring English, Ambrister and Arbuth- 
not. The arrested ones have come across from 
the Bahamas, bringing English guns and lead 
and powder and promises to the hostile blacks 
and reds; and all in accordance with that policy, 
dear to England, of preferring bloodshed by 
proxy to shedding blood herself. The General 
hangs conspirator Arbuthnot, and shoots con- 
spirator Ambrister; while England, in accord- 
ance with a second policy as dear as the first, 
disavows them both. 

The General goes on to Pensacola. Here he 
hauls down the flag of Spain, runs up the stars 
and stripes, drives out the Spanish Governor, 
and installs one of his own with a garrison to 
back him. Having executed conspirators Am- 
brister and Arbuthnot, he now seizes on two 
229 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Creek-Seminole chiefs and hangs them, to pre- 
serve, so to speak, a racial equilibrium. Hav- 
ing thus wound up the Spanish, the English, 
the negroes and the Indians in Florida, the 
General returns to his home, serene in the sense 
of duty well performed. 

The General's serenity Is misplaced; trouble 
breaks out in Washington. Mr. Monroe is 
President, and Statesmen Clay and Crawford 
and Calhoun and Adams desire to be. The 
quartette last named suspect in the General — 
about whom a responsive public is running 
mad — a growing rival. They decide to cripple 
him in the very cradle of his White House 
prospects. If they do not he may grow up to 
snatch from them the crown. Moved of this 
higH thought, they charge the General with 
waging unauthorized war; and with invading 
Spanish territory, we at peace with Spain. 
They call him a " murderer " for snuffing out 
conspirators Ambrlster and Arbuthnot and those 
superfluous Creek-Seminole chiefs. Also, giv- 
ing a moral snuffle, they demand that he be 
courtmartialed and cashiered. 

President Monroe shakes his head at the 
conniving quartette, replying as on a somewhat 
similar occasion did the Russian Catherine: 
230 



ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME 

*' We never punish conquerors. 

The General by the Cumberland hears of 
these weird doings In Washington, and again 
rides over the mountains. His object is to dis- 
cover, by personal observation, who in his case 
are the sheep and who the goats, and separate 
in his own mind his friends from his enemies. 
Upon his arrival the General finds himself an 
issue of politics. As such he is voted upon by 
Congress, which affirms heavily In his favor. 
The people have long ago decided in his favor; 
and Congress, ever quick to locate the butter on 
its bread, sharply follows the popular example. 
Statesman Clay and others among the General's 
foes express themselves freely to his disadvan- 
tage. However, the General expresses himself 
freely to their disadvantage, and profound 
judges of vituperation say that he has the sul- 
phurous best of the' exchange. 

Being upheld by Congress, and having freed 
his mind touching his foes, the General goes to 
Baltimore and Philadelphia, and is extrava- 
gantly wined and dined. Then he proceeds to 
New York, where FItz Greene Halleck and 
Joseph Rodman Drake write doggerel at him 
in the Evening Post; and where, also, he is 
" paraded " and " dinner "-honored to a degree 
16 231 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

which lays all former " parading " and " din- 
ner "-honoring, by less fervent communities, 
deep within the shade. 

Spain cedes Florida to the United States; just 
as she would cede a bad hot penny that, besides 
being worthless, is burning her fingers. The 
President appoints the General governor of 
the new domain. Whereupon the new Gov- 
ernor lays down his Major General's commis- 
sion, bids farewell to the army, and journeys 
south. He does not relish being Governor; 
and, after locking up his Spanish predecessor 
for stealing divers papers of state, and expatri- 
ating a scandalous bevy whose talk sounds like 
treason to his sensitive ear, he resigns. 

When the General gets back to the Cumber- 
land country, he finds that his former quarter- 
master. Major Lewis, has decided to send him 
to the White House. The General is mightily 
taken aback, and declares himself unfit. Major 
Lewis retorts that he is far more fit than any 
of his quartette of Washington enemies, laying 
especial emphasis on Statesman Clay. The ac- 
curate force of the retort strikes the General 
wordless. 

Major Lewis is rich, wise, cunning, cool, 
college-bred, and eighteen years younger than 
232 



ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME 

the General. He is a born manager, a natural 
wire-puller, and can play politics by ear as some 
folk play the fiddle. Congenitally a Warwick, 
he prefers making a President to being one, and 
would sooner hold a baby than hold an office. 

Major Lewis seizes on the General as so 
much raw material wherefrom to construct a 
President. As a best method of having his 
man on the ground, he gives a hint, and the 
Tennessee Legislature sends the General to 
Washington as Senator. The blooming Ra- 
chel accompanies him; they live at a tavern 
in Pennsylvania Avenue called the " Indian 
Queen." 

This caravansary is kept by one O'Neal, 
who has a pretty daughter Peg. Later the 
pretty Peg will dissolve a Cabinet, make Mr. 
Van Buren President, and come within an 
ace of getting Mr. Calhoun hanged. All 
this, however, is in the unpierced future. The 
blooming, childless Rachel makes a pet of 
pretty Peg; which rivets the latter forever in 
the good regards of the General, who loves 
what the blooming Rachel loves. 

Major Lewis proves a wizard of politics. 
Under his quiet legerdemain, here and there 
and everywhere political fires break forth in 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

favor of the General. They break forth in 
North Carolina, in Pennsylvania, in New 
York; and, so deft and secret is his work, none 
suspects Wizard Lewis as the incendiary. Wiz- 
ard Lewis is counseled by Colonel Burr who, 
like some old gray fox, sits in the mouth of his 
New York law-burrow in Nassau Street, peer- 
ing out at events as they pass. 

In these days, the lion-faced Webster writes 
his brother: 

" His (the General's) manners are more 
presidential than those of any of the candidates. 
He is grave, mild, and reserved. My wife is 
for him decidedly." 

There are four candidates for the White 
House, vide licet, the General, and Statesmen 
Adams and Crawford and Clay. The popular 
vote falls in the order given, with the General 
a long flight shot ahead of Statesman Adams, 
who is next on the list. And yet, while far in 
advance of the others, the General is without 
that electoral majority required by the Consti- 
tution, and the choice is thrown into the House 
of Representatives. 

Statesman Clay is now out of the running; 
for the President must be chosen from among 
the three candidates having the highest elec- 
234 



ODDS AND ENDS OF TIME 

toral vote, and he is fourth and lowest. States- 
man Crawford, who ranks third, is also out. 
He is stricken of paralysis; and, while this 
wins him sympathy, it loses him White House 
strength. The fight is to be between the Gen- 
eral and Statesman Adams. 

While Statesman Clay is out of the coil, so 
far as any personal chance of becoming the 
House selection is concerned, he is in It de- 
cisively in another fashion. As a chief force in 
the House, he holds that important body in the 
hollow of his hand; and, while he cannot be 
its choice, he can control its choice. He con- 
trols it for Statesman Adams, on the under- 
ground understanding that he. Statesman Clay, 
shall sit at Statesman Adams' right hand as Sec- 
retary of State. Statesman Clay hopes to run 
presldentlally another day, and thinks to make 
his calling and election sure while head of the 
Cabinet of Statesman Adams. As events forge 
and fuse themselves in the blast furnaces of the 
future, it will be discovered that in thus opin- 
ing Statesman Clay falls into grievous error. 

It is four o'clock In the afternoon when the 
Clay-guided House counts Statesman Adams 
into a Presidency. Five hours afterward the 
General meets Statesman Adams In the East 

235 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Room, where both are in attendance upon the 
last reception of outgoing President Munroe. 
The contrast between them tells in the Gen- 
eral's favor. There is no gloom of disappoint- 
ment on his brow, no cloud of defeat in his 
hawkish blue eyes. The General has a lady on 
his arm. He greets Statesman Adams grace- 
fully and extends his hand: 

" How is Mr. Adams? " cries he. " I give 
you my left hand, sir, since my right is devoted 
to the fair." 

Statesman Adams is a diplomat, and used to 
courts and salons. The General is of the wil- 
derness and its battlefields. And yet the Gen- 
eral shines out the more polished of the two. 
Statesman Adams takes the extended hand; but 
he does it awkwardly, backwardly, and with a 
wooden manner, as though his deportment is 
seized of some sudden, bashful stiffness of the 
joints. At last he manages to say: 

" Very well, sir! I hope you are well! " 



XIX 

THE KILLING EDGE OF 
SLANDER 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE KILLING EDGE OF SLANDER 

WIZARD LEWIS boldly re-begins his 
work of White House capturing. 
He becomes busy to the elbows in 
the General's destinies before Statesman Adams 
is inaugurated. When the latter names States- 
man Clay to be his Secretary of State, Wizard 
Lewis lays bare the deal which thus exalts the 
Kentuckian. He raises the cry of " Bargain 
and Corruption ! " and the public takes it up. 
Statesman Adams and Statesman Clay are pil- 
loried as conspirators who have wronged the 
General of a Presidency, and the State port- 
folio in the hands of Statesman Clay is pointed 
to as proof. The General writes the bloom- 
ing Rachel, just now at home by the Cumber- 
land: 

" The Judas of the West has closed the con- 
tract and received the thirty pieces of silver." 

Statesman Clay defends himself badly. He 
declares that he objects to the General's White 
239 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

House ambitions only because he is a " Mili- 
tary Chieftain." He speaks as though the 
world knows that a " Military Chieftain " will 
make a perilous Chief Magistrate. The world 
knows nothing of the sort; the cry of " Bargain 
and Corruption " gains head. 

In retort to that arraignment of being a 
*' Military Chieftain " — made as if the phrase 
be merely another name for " buccaneer " — the 
General writes the old friendly fox, Colonel 
Burr : 

" It is not strange that he (Statesman Clay) 
should indulge himself In such reasoning, since 
It comes somewhat to his own personal defense. 
Our blue-grass Secretary has been ever remark- 
able for his caution, to give It a no worse name, 
and has not yet risked himself for his coun- 
try, or moved from safe repose to repel an 
invading foe." 

The General Is not the only one who com- 
ments upon the astounding copartnership In 
politics and policies between Statesman Adams 
and Statesman Clay. John Randolph, of Roa- 
noke, remarks concerning It, from his bitter 
place In the Senate : 

*' Sir, It Is a coming together of the puritan 
and the blackleg — Blifil and Black George ! " 
240 




S. H- J\<^o^'y^- 



THE EDGE OF SLANDER 

This view seems hugely to excite Statesman 
Clay, and he challenges the picturesque Ran- 
dolph to a duel by Little Falls. They meet; 
but, since both are at pains to miss, no good 
comes of it. 

Wizard Lewis goes teaching the General's 
merits in every State of the Union. In his 
White House siege, Wizard Lewis receives his 
best help from Statesman Adams himself. 

The latter publicist is a personage of ice- 
cold ideas, and lists ingratitude at the top of 
the virtues. There be folic — descended, doubt- 
less, of ancestors that heated the pincers and 
turned the thumbikins, and worked the strain- 
ing rack for the Inquisitions as mere day la- 
borers at torture — who delight in doing mean, 
hateful, punishing things to their fellow mor- 
tals, if they may but call such doing " duty." 
They will weep hypocritically while burning a 
victim, and aver, between sobs, that they pile 
the fagots and apply the torch only from a 
" sternest conviction of duty." The word 
" duty," like the venom of a serpent, is ever in 
their mouths; by it they break hearts, destroy 
hopes, create blackness, blot out light, forbid 
happiness, foster grief, and plant pain in breasts 
innocent of every crime save that of helping 
241 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

them. Statesman Adams — heart as hollow as 
a bell and quite as brazen — is one of these. He 
demonstrates his purity by refusing his obliga- 
tions, and proves himself great by turning his 
back on his friends. Made up of a multitude 
of littlenesses, he offers no trait of breadth or 
bigness as an offset. He is not wise; he is not 
brave; he is not generous; he is not — even in 
wrongdoing — original. He will guide by some 
maxim; or he will permit himself to be posed 
by a proverb; and, while ever breathlessly re- 
spectable, he is never once right. As President 
he proposes for himself an inhuman goodness, 
and declares that he will remove no one from 
office on " account of politics " — a catch phrase 
which has protected incompetency In place in 
every age. 

Although he is so fond of them, Statesman 
Adams, in taking the latter snow-white position, 
overlooks an aphorism that will be vital while 
time lasts. He forgets that " The President 
who makes no removals will himself be re- 
moved." 

"Strike, lest you be stricken!" murmured 

Queen Elizabeth, as seizing the pen she signed 

the warrant of block and axe for Scottish 

Mary, and It might be well and wise for States- 

242 



THE EDGE OF SLANDER 

man Adams to wear in constant mind that il- 
lustrious example. 

The thought is vain. Statesman Adams ig- 
nores his friends, consults his foes, and offers 
a base picture of the ungrateful that draws the 
public's honest wrath his way. Wizard Lewis 
is no one to miss such opportunities to upbuild 
the General's fortunes at the expense of the 
enemy; and so the General grows each day 
stronger, while Statesman Adams — ^who hopes 
to succeed himself — owns less and less of 
strength. 

The currents of time flow swiftly now, and 
four years go by — four years wherein the old 
friendly far-seeing fox, Colonel Burr, in his 
Nassau Street burrow, teaches the General's 
leaders intrigue as a pedagogue teaches the al- 
phabet to his pupils. And day after day the 
purblind Adams, with the purblind Clay at the 
elbow of his hopes and fears, sets traps against 
his own prospects, and does his unwitting best 
or worst to destroy himself. Then comes the 
canvass : the General against Statesman Adams, 
who courts a reelection. 

The moment the rival forces march upon the 
field, the dullest marks the superiority of the 
General's. With that. Statesman Clay — in the 
243 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

war saddle for Statesman Adams, whose battle 
is his battle and whose defeat means his down- 
fall — loses his head. He accuses the General 
of every offense except that of theft, calls him 
every name save that of coward. The accusa- 
tions fail; the epithets fall harmless to the 
ground; the people know, and draw the closer 
about the General's standards. The latter's pop- 
ularity rises as might a hurricane, and sweeps 
away opposition like down of thistles ! 

Statesman Clay becomes frantic. Possessed 
as by a demon, he issues instructions to assail 
the blooming Rachel. His hound-pack obey the 
call. From that moment the General's mar- 
riage is the issue. He is charged with " steal- 
ing another's wife," and every shaft of menda- 
cious villification is shot against the unoffending 
bosom of the blooming Rachel. Those are fire- 
swept moments of anguish for the General, 
who feels the pain the more, since his hands are 
tied against what saw-handle methods silenced 
the dead Dickinson one May Kentucky morn- 
ing in that poplar wood. 

The blooming Rachel, for her wronged part, 

says never a word. She goes the oftener to the 

little church, but that is all. And yet, while 

she seems so resigned and patient beneath the 

244 



THE EDGE OF SLANDER 

slandrous lash, the thong Is biting always to 
her soul's source. 

The election takes place, and now the people 
speak. They set the grinding heel of their an- 
ger upon those slanders; they throw down that 
ladder of lies by which Statesman Adams hopes 
to climb. Wizard Lewis, Burr-guided, foils 
Statesman Clay at every point; the General 
rides down Statesman Adams like a coach and 
six. 

New England is tribal and narrow, with the 
reeking taint of old Federalism In Its veins; it 
gives Itself for Statesman Adams, unredeemed 
save by a single district In Maine. There, In- 
deed, rises up one electoral vote for the Gen- 
eral. It shows in the gray waste of Adams 
sentiment about it, like a green tree and a 
fountain against the gray wastes of Sahara. 
New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland follow In 
New England's dreary wake for Statesman 
Adams; while New York gives him sixteen 
electoral votes out of thirty-six. That offers 
the round circumference of his Clay-collected 
strength — an electoral vote of eighty-three! 

For the General, Pennsylvania, Virginia, 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Ala- 
bama, Mississippi, Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, 

245 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

and Illinois go headlong ; while New York gives 
him twenty electoral votes, with Tennessee his 
own by a popular count of twenty for one. 
Statesman Clay, as a retort to the slanders he 
fulminated, beholds his own State of Kentucky 
reject him, and aid in swelling those one hun- 
dred and seventy-eight electoral votes which 
declare for the General. The world at large, 
seated by Its fireside and sagely thumbing those 
returns of one hundred and seventy-eight for 
the General against a meager eighty-three for 
Statesman Adams, finds therein a stunning re- 
buke to both the ambitions and the methods of 
Statesman Clay. 

When word of the General's election reaches 
the blooming Rachel, she smiles wearily and 
says: 

"For the General's sake I'm glad! For 
myself I never wished It." 

Now that the war of the votes is over and 
the General victor, mankind relaxes into Its 
customary dinners and parades. The Cumber- 
land good people resolve to outparade all for- 
mer parades, outdine all former dinners. They 
engage themselves with tremendous gala prep- 
arations. It shall be a time when oxen are 
eaten whole, and whisky Is drunk by the barrel. 
246 




V 



THE EDGE OF SLANDER 

The day set apart as sacred to the coming 
parade, and that dinner yet to be devoured, 
breaks brightly full of promise. There is never 
a cloud in the Cumberland sky, never a care 
on the Cumberland heart. In a moment all is 
reversed! — light gives way to blackness, hap- 
piness to grief ! Like a bolt from a heaven 
smiling, the word descends that the -blooming 
Rachel lies dead. The word is true. The mon- 
strous weight of slander heaped upon it breaks 
her gentle heart. 

They bury the blooming Rachel at the foot 
of the garden where her best-loved flowers 
grow. The General is ten years older In a 
night; the tall form, yesterday as straight as a 
lance, is bent and broken. The blue eyes, once 
hawklike, are dimmed with tears. Friends 
come to press his hand — he chokes and cannot 
speak ! But the awful agony of his soul is 
written in the sweat drops on his wrung brow. 

As the General stands by the grave that is 
smothering for him all the song and the sweet 
sunshine of life, the ever-faithful, never-failing 
Coffee is by his side. The poor General reaches 
blindly out and takes hold of the rough, big, 
loyal hand for support. His beloved Coffee, 
who flanked the Red Stick Creeks for him at 
17 247 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

the Horseshoe and held his low mud walls 
against England's boast and best at New Or- 
leans, will not fail him now in this his sternest 
trial by the graveside of the blooming Rachel! 
The General, doubly quiet, doubly stern, is- 
sues forth of that ordeal another man. He is 
as one who lives because it is his duty, and not 
for love of life. Plainly, his hopes like his 
heart are buried with the blooming Rachel. In 
y^ his soul he lays her death to the doors of States- 
man Adams and Statesman Clay; throughout 
the years to follow he will never forget nor 
forgive. To the end he will cultivate his hatred 
of them, and tend it as he might a flower. 
Time cannot remold him in this belief; and a 
decade later he will say to his friend Lewis, 
while his eye flashes like some sudden-drawn 
rapier: 

" Major, she was stung to death by slander! 
It was such adders as John Quincy Adams, such 
pit-vipers as Henry Clay, that killed her! " 



XX 

THE GENERAL GOES TO THE 
WHITE HOUSE 



CHAPTER XX 

THE GENERAL GOES TO THE WHITE HOUSE 

THIS is of a Steamboat day, and keel 
boats are but a memory. The Gen- 
eral makes his tedious eight-weeks' 
way to Washington via the Cumberland, the 
Ohio, the mountains, and the Potomac valley. 
It is like the progress of a conqueror. The 
people throng about him until Wizard Lewis, 
remembering his broken state, fears for his life. 
The fears are without grounds to stand on. 
Applause never kills, and the General finds in 
it the milk of lions. He enters Washington re- 
newed, and was never so fit for hard work. 
The General is inaugurated. As he is cheered 
into the White House by jubilant thousands, 
Statesman Clay, beaten and bitter, retires to 
Kentucky ; while Statesman Adams goes back to 
Massachusetts, where his ice-waterisms, let us 
hope, will be appreciated, and from which 
frigid region he ought never to have been 
drawn. 

251 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

When the General Is declared President, 
Statesman Calhoun is made Vice-President. 
From his high perch in the Senate Statesman 
Calhoun begins at once to scan the plain of the 
possible for ways and means to name himself 
the General's successor. He proves dull in the 
furtherance of his ambitions, and conceives that 
the only best path to victory lies over the Gen- 
eral himself. He must break down that demi- 
god in the hearts of the people, and teach them 
to hate where now they trust and love. 

The General is not a day in Washington be- 
fore Statesman Calhoun is Intriguing to cut the 
ground of popularity from beneath his feet. 
As frequently happens with dark-lantern strate- 
gists, his plottings in their very inception go 
off on the wrong foot. Statesman Calhoun is 
so foolish as to commence his campaign against 
the General with an attack upon a woman. 
The woman thus malevolently distinguished is 
the pretty Peg, once belle of the Indian Queen. 

Between that time when the General came 
last to Washington as Senator and the pretty 
Peg was petted and loved by the blooming 
Rachel, and now when the General occupies 
the White House as President, destiny has been 
moving rapidly and not always gayly with the 
252 



TO THE WHITE HOUSE 

pretty Peg. In that Interim she becomes the 
wife of Purser Timberlake of the Navy, who 
later cuts his drunken throat and walks over- 
board to his drunken death in the Mediter- 
ranean. 

In her widow's weeds the pretty Peg looks 
prettier than before — since black is ever the 
best setting for beauty, and shows it off like a 
diamond. Major Eaton, Senator from Ten- 
nessee and per incident friend of the General, 
is smitten of the pretty Peg, and marries her. 
The wedding bells are ringing as the General 
rides into Washington. 

It is an hour wherein Vice-Presidents have 
more to say than they will later on. Statesman 
Calhoun, scheming his own advantage, puts 
forward covert efforts to place his friends about 
the General as cablneteers. This is not so dif- 
ficult; since the General is not thinking on 
Statesman Calhoun. His eyes, hate-guided, are 
fastened upon Statesman Adams and Statesman 
Clay; his single aim is to advance no follower 
of theirs. These are happy conditions for 
Statesman Calhoun, who comes up unseen on 
the General's blind side, and presents him — all 
unnoticed — with three of his Cabinet six. 

Statesman Calhoun, who prefers four to 

253 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

three, next tries all he secretly knows to control 
the General's choice of a War Secretary. In 
this he meets defeat; the General selects Major 
Eaton, just wedded to the pretty Peg. His 
completed Cabinet includes Van Buren, Secre- 
tary of State; Ingham, Secretary of the Treas- 
ury; Eaton, Secretary of War; Branch, Secre- 
tary of the Navy; Berrien, Attorney General; 
and Barry, Postmaster General. Of these. 
Statesman Calhoun, craftily reviewing the list 
from his perch in the Senate, may call Cabi- 
neteers Ingham, Branch, and Berrien his hench- 
men. 

The General is not aware of this Calhoun 
color to his Cabinet. The last man of the six 
hates Statesman Clay and Statesman Adams; 
which is the consideration most upon the Gen- 
eral's mind. He does not like Statesman Cal- 
houn. But he in no sort suspects him; and, at 
this crisis of Cabinet making, that plotting 
Vice-President is not at all upon the General's 
slope of thought. 

Not content with half the Cabinet, States- 
man Calhoun resents privily his failure to con- 
trol the war portfolio. He resolves to attack 
Major Eaton, and drive him from the place. 
As much wanting in chivalry as in a wisdom 
254 



TO THE WHITE HOUSE 

of the popular, he decides to assail him through 
the pretty Peg. It is the error of Statesman 
Calhoun's career, which now becomes one blun- 
dering procession of mistakes. 

Statesman Calhoun's attack on the pretty 
Peg begins with hidden adroitness. There lives 
in Philadelphia a smug dominie named Ely. 
On the merest Calhoun hint in the dark, Dom- 
inie Ely — who has a mustard-seed soul — writes 
the General a letter, wherein he charges the 
pretty Peg with every immorality. Dominie 
Ely prayerfully protests against the husband of 
a woman so morally ebon making one of the 
General's official family. 

The General is in flames in a moment. His 
loved and blooming Rachel was stabbed to 
death by slander! The pretty Peg was the 
blooming Rachel's favorite, in that old day at 
the Indian Queen ! The General possesses 
every angry reason for being aroused, and he 
sends fiercely for smug Dominie Ely. 

The villifylng Dominie Ely appears before 
the General In fear and trembling — color 
stricken from his fat cheek. He falterlngly 
confesses that he has been Inspired to his slan- 
ders by a Dominie Campbell. The furious 
General summons Dominie Campbell, about 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

whom there is a Calhoun atmosphere of jackal 
and buzzard in even parts. The General hurls 
pointed questions at Dominie Campbell, and 
catches him in lies. 

While the General is putting to flight the 
two black-coat buzzards of slander, the war 
breaks out in a new quarter. The " Ladies of 
Washington," compared to whom the Red 
Stick Creeks at the Horseshoe and the redcoat 
English at New Orleans are as children's toys, 
fall upon the General's social flank. They hate 
the pretty Peg because she is more beautiful 
than they. They resent her as the daughter of 
a tavern keeper — a common tapster ! — who is 
now being lifted to a social eminence equal with 
their own. These reasons bring the " Ladies 
of Washington " to the field. But with mili- 
tant sapiency they conceal them, and adopt as 
the pretended cause of their onslaught the 
slanders of those ophidians, Dominie Ely and 
Dominie Campbell. 

Mrs. Calhoun, wife of Statesman Calhoun, 
at the head of Capital fashion and social war- 
chief of the " Ladies of Washington," says she 
will not " recognize " the pretty Peg. Mrs. 
Ingham, Mrs. Branch, and Mrs. Berrien, wives 
of the three Cabineteers who wear in private 
256 



TO THE WHITE HOUSE 

the colors of Statesman Calhoun, say they will 
not " recognize " the pretty Peg. Mrs. Donel- 
son, wife of the General's private secretary and 
ex officio "Lady of the White House," says 
she will not " recognize " the pretty Peg. The 
latter drawing-room Red Stick is the General's 
niece. Also, she is in fashionable leading 
strings to Mrs. Calhoun, who as social war- 
chief of the " Ladles of Washington " dazzles 
and benumbs her. 

Mrs. Donelson approaches the General con- 
cerning the pretty Peg. 

" Anything but that, Uncle! " she says. " I 
am sorry to offend you, but I cannot ' recog- 
nize ' Mrs. Eaton." 

" Then you'd better go back, to Tennessee, 
my dear! " returns the General, between puffs 
at his clay pipe. 

Mrs. Donelson and her unwilling spouse go 
back to Tennessee. The war against the pretty 
Peg goes on. 

The General's Cabinet is a house divided 
against itself. Cabineteers Ingham, Branch, 
and Berrien align themselves with Statesman 
Calhoun on this issue of the pretty Peg. For 
each has a ring in his nose, a wedding ring, and 
his wife leads him about by it socially, hither 
257 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

and yon as she chooses. Cabineteers Van 
Buren and Barry range themselves with Cabl- 
neteer Eaton and the pretty Peg. 

Cabineteer Van Buren is short, round, fat, 
smooth, adroit, ambitious, and so much the 
mental tree-toad that, now when he is in con- 
tact with the positive General, his every opin- 
ion takes its color from that warrior. Also 
Cabineteer Van Buren is a widower, with no 
wife to lead him socially by the nose. Hat in 
hand, he calls upon the pretty Peg — a polite- 
ness which pleases the General tremendously. 

Cabineteer Van Buren gives dinners, and 
asks the pretty Peg to perform as hostess. 
With a wise eye on the General, he incites 
Cabineteer Barry, who is a bachelor, to burst 
into similar dinners, with the pretty Peg in com- 
mand. By his suggestion, Minister Vaughn of 
the English and Minister Krudener of the Rus- 
sians, who like Cabineteer Barry are bachelors, 
follow amiable suit. They give legation din- 
ners, at which the pretty Peg presides. The 
General adopts these brilliant examples with 
the White House. The prett)^ Peg finds her- 
self in control of such society high ground as 
the English and Russian legations, two Cabi- 
net houses besides her own, and last and most 
258 



TO THE WHITE HOUSE 

important the White House itself. It is a 
merry even if a savage war, and the pretty 
Peg is everywhere victorious. 

Not everywhere! Mrs. Calhoun, as war- 
chief of the " Ladies of Washington," with 
Mrs. Ingham, Mrs. Branch, and Mrs. Berrien 
about her as a staff, refuses to yield. These 
four indomitables and their beflounced and be- 
feathered followers, noses uptilted in scorn of 
the pretty Peg, prosecute their battle to the 
acrid end. 

In the earlier stages, the General, his angry 
thoughts on Statesman Clay, inclines to the be- 
lief that these attacks on the pretty Peg are of 
that defeated personage's connivance, and says 
so to Wizard Lewis. 

Wizard Lewis, when the General is inaugu- 
rated, is for returning to his Cumberland home, 
but finds himself restrained by the lonesome 
General. 

" What! " cries the latter, " would you leave 
me now, after doing more than all the rest to 
land me here? " 

Upon which reproach. Wizard Lewis re- 
mains, and lives in the White House with the 
General. It befalls that with the earliest slan- 
ders of the ophidians, Dominie Ely and Dom- 
259 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

inie Campbell, the General goes to Wizard 
Lewis with accusations against Statesman Clay. 

" It's that pit-viper, Henry Clay! " cries the 
General. " Major, the pet employment of that 
scoundrel Is the vUlification of good women! " 

Wizard Lewis holds to a different view. He 
declares that the secret impulse of this base war 
is Statesman Calhoun, and proves it as events 
unfold. 

" And yet," asks the General, " why should 
he assail little Peg? Both he and Mrs. Cal- 
houn called upon her and Major Eaton, and 
congratulated them on their marriage." 

" That was while Major Eaton was a sena- 
tor," Wizard Lewis responds, " and before he 
became War Secretary and got In the way of 
the Calhoun plans. Your Vice-President, Gen- 
eral, is mad to be President. Also, he is so 
blurred in his strategy as to Imagine that these 
attacks on little Peg will advance his prospects." 

The General snorts suspiciously; a light 
breaks upon him, 

" Then your theory Is," he says, " that Cal- 
houn assails Peg as a step toward the presi- 
dency." 

"Precisely, General! Rightly construed, it 
is not an attack on Peg, but you. He is try- 
260 



TO THE WHITE HOUSE 

ing to put you before the people in the role of 
one who countenances the immoral, and up- 
holds a bad woman. In that he hopes to array 
every virtuous fireside against you. He looks 
for you to ask a second term; and, by any 
means In his power, he will strive to destroy 
you out of his path." 

" Now, was there ever such infamy ! " cries 
the General. " Here is a man so vile that he 
would pave his way to the White House with 
the slain honor of a woman! " 

The hate of the General is now focused upon 
Statesman Calhoun. That ignoble strategist, 
he resolves, shall never achieve the presidency. 

As one wherewith to defeat Statesman Cal- 
houn and succeed himself, the General picks 
upon Cabineteer Van Buren — that suave one, 
who is so much to the urbane fore for the 
pretty Peg. 

" Yes, sir," says the General to Wizard 
Lewis; "I'll take a second term! And then. 
Major, we will make Matt President after me." 

" We'll do more," returns Wizard Lewis. 
*' When we elect you President the second time, 
we'll shove aside the plotting Calhoun, and 
make Van Buren Vice-President." 

"Right!" exults the General. "Then, 
261 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

should I die, Matt will at once step Into my 
shoes." 

Neither the General nor Wizard Lewis is at 
pains to conceal their design. The sallow cheek 
of Statesman Calhoun grows sallower; for the 
news is like an icicle through his heart. It in 
no wise abates his war upon the pretty Peg, 
however; which — as Wizard Lewis guesses — is 
only meant to break down the General with 
good people. 



XXI 

WIZARD LEWIS URGES A 
CHANGE OF FRONT 



18 



CHAPTER XXI 

WIZARD LEWIS URGES A CHANGE OF FRONT 

WIZARD LEWIS, bending his brows 
to the situation, now counsels an 
extreme step. The pretty Peg Is 
vindicated; in all quarters she rises in triumph 
over Mrs. Calhoun, Mrs. Ingham, Mrs. 
Branch, Mrs. Berrien, and what other " society 
Red Sticks " — as he terms them — seek her de- 
struction. The next thing is to shear away the 
cabinet strength of Statesman Calhoun. Wiz- 
ard Lewis recommends a dissolution of the 
Cabinet. He lays his thought before the Gen- 
eral, who sits listening in the smoke of his long 
pipe. Cabineteer Van Buren will resign. Cabi- 
neteers Eaton and Barry will emulate his ex- 
ample and turn over their portfolios. With 
half his Cabinet gone, should the Calhoun three 
prove backward, the General shall demand 
their portfolios. 

"And then?" asks the General, his iron- 
gray head in a cloud of tobacco smoke. 
265 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

*' Then you will make Van Buren Minister 
to England, and give Major Eaton the gov- 
ernorship of Florida. Little Peg should look 
well in the palace at St. Augustine." 

" By the Eternal! " cries the General, as he 
hurls his clay pipe into the fireplace where hun- 
dreds of its brittle predecessors have gone 
crashing — " by the Eternal, we'll do it ! The 
last vestige of a Calhoun cabinet influence 
shall be wiped out! " 

It comes to pass as Wizard Lewis pro- 
grammes. Cabineteer Van Buren resigns, and 
Cabineteers Eaton and Barry hasten to follow 
his lead. The three other cabineteers sit dazed; 
the suddenness of the thing takes away their 
cabinet breaths. They sit dazed so long that 
the General loses patience and asks for their 
portfolios. One by one they hand them in, as 
it were at the White House door — Cabineteer 
Ingham being last and most reluctant of all. 

There be tears and mournful wailings now 
among the society Red Sticks. Mrs. Ingham, 
Mrs. Branch, and Mrs. Berrien are shak- 
en in their social souls, never for one mo- 
ment having foreseen this movement in disas- 
trous flank. However, there is no help for 
it. The deposed three wash off their social 
266 



A CHANGE OF FRONT 

war paint, and go their divers ways lament- 
ing; while the General and Wizard Lewis 
grin sourly over their fireside pipes. As for 
Statesman Calhoun, his schemes experience a 
chill; for in thus sending Cabineteers Ingham, 
Branch, and Berrien into political exile, the 
General drives a knife to the very heart of his 
selfish diplomacy. 

Cabinet wiped out, the General constructs 
another, with his old-time friend and comrade 
Livingston as Secretary of State. Also, the 
agreeable Van Buren departs for the Court of 
St. James as the General's envoy to England, 
while Major Eaton and the villified yet vic- 
torious Peg wend southward among the flowers 
to rule over Florida. 

Before he leaves Washington, the ill-used 
Eaton makes praiseworthy attempts to fasten a 
duel upon ex-Cabineteer Ingham, who hires a 
whole stage coach and gallops off to Baltimore 
— the fear of death upon him — to avoid being 
sacrificed. The flight of ex-Cabineteer Ingham 
is a shock to the General. 

" I knew he was a bad, designing man," 
says the General with a sigh; "but, upon my 
soul. Major, I didn't think him a coward ! " 

Statesman Calhoun, weaker by virtue of that 
267 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Cabinet lopping off, is still too narrowly set In his 
White House ambitions to give up the war. In 
this he is much sustained by the Senate, which 
jealous body pretends to possess its own causes 
of complaint. Chief among these is the ob- 
vious manner In which the General promotes 
the importance of that old fox, Colonel Burr. 
The General shows that he cares more for the 
appointment-indorsement of Colonel Burr than 
for the recommendations of half the Senate. 
This does not set well on the proud senatorial 
stomachs of the togaed ones; and, with States- 
man Calhoun to lead them, they are willing to 
obstruct and baffle the General in his policies. 
Moved of this spirit, and at the Instigation of 
Statesman Calhoun, the Senate refuses to con- 
firm the appointment of Minister Van Buren — 
a Burrite — who thereupon makes his farewell 
unruffled bow to the great ones at St. James and 
returns amiably home. 

That Thomas Benton, who was so fortunate 
as to fall Into a receptive cellar on a certain 
Nashville occasion when the muzzle of the 
General's saw-handle was at his breast, and who 
is now in the Senate from Missouri, gives 
Statesman Calhoun notice of what he may ex- 
pect: 

268 




E^DWARD Livingston 
From a Jraiuing by y. B. Longacre. 



A CHANGE OF FRONT 

*' You have broken a minister," observes the 
farslghted Benton — " you have broken a Min- 
ister to make a Vice-President." 

While the slander battle against the pretty 
Peg is raging, a storm cloud of a different char- 
acter is gathering over the General. Although 
Statesman Clay has no part in that war upon 
the pretty Peg, he by no means sits with folded 
hands in idleness. 

There is a certain money-creature called 
the United States Bank. It is controlled by 
one Biddle of Philadelphia. Banker Biddle 
is a glistening, serpentine personage, oily and 
avaricious — a polished composite of assurance, 
greed, and lies. He is a proven and unscrupu- 
lous corruptionist, and a majority of both 
Senate and House wait upon his money-bidding. 
Under the Biddle influence, the Bank never 
fails to consider the mere " name " of a Con- 
gressman as perfect collateral for a loan. Even 
so incorrigible a bankrupt as the lion-faced 
Webster is good at the Biddle Bank for thou- 
sands. 

Secure in its hold on Congress, and insolent 

— as Money ever is when it feels secure — the 

Biddle Bank thinks to crack a political whip. 

The main bank is in Philadelphia. There 

269 



4~ 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

are twenty-five branch banks scattered here 
and there throughout the country. In pursu- 
ance of its determination to dominate politics, 
the Biddle Bank suddenly refuses loans to the 
General's friends. Banker Biddle and the 
Bank are secretly moved to these doughty at- 
titudes by Statesman Clay, who, with his party 
of the Whigs, has for long been their ally. 

Statesman Clay, in possession of the ma- 
chinery of his party, is resolved to put his 
own name forward at the head of the next 
Whig ticket against the formidable General. 
He foresees that Statesman Calhoun — who is 
of the General's party of the Democrats — will 
come to utter grief in his intrigues to supplant 
the General and make himself a candidate. 
And yet, the blue-grass Machiavelli can use 
Statesman Calhoun. The latter is powerful 
with the Senate. The Senate hates the General 
as blindly as does Statesman Calhoun. 

Machiavelli Clay resolves to have advantage 
of this double condition of hatred. He will 
beguile the General to attack the Biddle Bank. 
The attack can only be made by message to 
* Congress. That should be the opportunity of 
MachKucllI Clay. He will have the Senate for 
the battle ground; and it shall go hard if he 
270 



A CHANGE OF FRONT 

do not emerge with the General defeated and 
the Bank and Banker Biddle at his back. With 
such friends in the campaign to come later he 
should have the General and his party of 
democracy at his mercy. Thus dreams Machia- 
velli Clay. 

It is a beautiful dream — this long-drawn chi- 
cane of Machiavelli Clay. As a move toward 
its realization he suggests the policy of a loan 
hostility toward the General's friends; for the 
General will fight almost as quickly for a friend 
as for a woman. 

Banker Biddle adopts it, and the Bank de- 
velops it in Portsmouth. The paper of one 
of the General's friends — a Mr. Isaac Hill — 
is dishonored, and the General's friendship is 
understood to be the reason. The thing is 
managed like a challenge, and has the instant 
effect of bringing the General — ever ready for 
such a war — to the field. In its invidious at- 
titude toward his friends, the Bank throws 
down the glove; and the General promptly 
picks it up. In a message to Congress, he as- 
sails the Bank; and the fight is on. 

Money is always a coward, and commonly a 
fool. Also its instinct is the weak instinct of 
corruption. Its attitude toward a public is ever 
271 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

that of the threatening, bullying, bragging ter- 
rorist, who will either rule or ruin. It works 
by fear, and resorts to every quack device. It 
will gnash its jaws, lash its tail, spout fire and 
smoke in the face of a quailing world. And 
yet all this tail-lashing and jaw-gnashing and 
fire-spouting is a sham. Money, for all its 
appearance of ferocity, is no more perilous 
to folk who face it than is the fire-spouting, 
jaw-gnashing, tail-lashing papier-mache dragon 
of grand opera. Attack it, and what follows? 
A couple of rueful supernumeraries crawl ab- 
jectly, if grumblingly, from its papier-mache 
stomach — the complete yet harmless reason 
of the jaw-gnashing, fire-spouting, tail-lashing 
from which a frightened world shrunk back. 

Besides these furious matters. Money does 
another lying thing. It seeks to teach the pub- 
lic to regard it as the palpitant heart of the 
country itself. 

"I am the seat of life!" cries Money. 
" Touch me, and you die! " 

The advantage of this lie is clear; that is, if 
the lie win credit. Being the heart, however 
corrupt, no law surgery may reach it. If 
Money were the hand of a people, or the fin- 
gers on that hand, then it might be dealt 
272 



A CHANGE OF FRONT 

with. It could be statute-lanced or poulticed or 
even amputated, and no threat to life ensue. 
Money foresees this; and, with that lying 
cunning which is ever the scoundrel sword and 
shield of cowards, it declares itself to be the 
heart. Thus is it safeguarded against the 
honest least correction of communal saw and 
knife. Being the heart, its vileness may be de- 
plored but cannot be mended. For who is the 
mediciner that shall handle the heart to any 
result save death? 

And yet while Money thus proclaims itself 
the nation's heart it lies. It is not even so re- 
putable a member as the hand. At the most 
it comes to be no more than just a thumb, or a 
forefinger, and the farthest possible remove 
from any source of life. Folk who would aid 
their money-throttled hour must remember these 
things. 

Banker Biddle and the Bank, now when 
the General advances upon them, go through 
that furious charlatanry of jaw-gnashing, tail- 
lashing, and fire-spouting. The General is un- 
convinced, unterrified. His hawk eyes pierce 
the miserable masquerade. He knows the Bank 
for a dragon of paper and pretense, and does 
not hesitate. 

273 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Falling to arouse his personal-political fear, 
Banker Biddle and the Bank attempt to stay 
the General by proclaiming a peril to the coun- 
try at large. 

" We are the throbbing heart of all pros- 
perity ! " they cry. 

The General recognizes the lie. He knows 
that prosperity comes from the rain and the sun 
and the soil, and not from banks or bankers. 
As well might the two-bushel sacks declare 
themselves to be the harvest reason of a na- 
tion's wheat. The General continues his ad- 
vance. There shall be no evasion, no hiding, 
no safety by lies; masks are not to avail nor 
pretenses protect. 

The General in his attack on Banker Biddle 
and the Bank displays a genius even with that 
which he employed against the English at New 
Orleans. Banker Biddle and the Bank are 
the petted custodians of all the millions of 
Government. The General " removes " those 
millions — a yellow mountain of gold I Inci- 
dentally, he dismisses a weak-kneed Secretary of 
the Treasury as a preliminary. 

" Remove the deposits ! " says the Gen- 
eral. 

" I dare not! " whines the weak-kneed one. 
274 



A CHANGE OF FRONT 

"I will take the responsibility!" urges the 
General. 

Still the weak-kneed one falters. At that 
the General sets him aside. 

The " removal " of those Government mil- 
lions, which is as the drawing off of half their 
life blood, leaves the Bank and Banker Biddle 
exceeding pale in the face. They look appeal- 
ingly at Statesman Clay, who, the better to 
manage his side of the conflict, has taken a Ken- 
tucky seat in the Senate. Statesman Clay en- 
courages the Bank and Banker Biddle. It will 
all come right, he says; there is a Senate bomb 
preparing. 

To bring the General squarely before the 
public as the Bank's destroyer. Statesman Clay 
anticipates the years and offers a measure 
renewing the charter of that money temple. 
Statesman Calhoun, with every Senate foe of 
the General, is for it. The measure gallops 
through both Senate and House. It is sent' 
whirling to the White House. 

" Will he sign it? " wonders Statesman Clay, 
in consultation with his own thoughts. 

For an anxious moment Statesman Clay fears 
the coming of that signature; he cannot con- 
ceive of courage greater than his own. His 
275 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

anxiety is misplaced. The General will not 
sign. When the Clay-constructed measure re- 
newing the charter of the Banic is laid before 
him, with about what ado might attend the 
killing of a garter snake he breaks Its back with 
his veto. 

Statesman Clay rubs his satisfied hands. 

" Now," says he to Banker Biddle, who Is 
becoming a bit weak, " we have him helpless I 
That veto is his death warrant ! The campaign 
is at hand; I shall be the candidate of my 
party, he of his. That veto shall be the issue 1 
Money, you know, is all powerful. Being so, 
who shall doubt the result when now the pub- 
lic is driven to choose between the Bank and 
the White House — Prosperity and Andrew 
Jackson? " 



XXII 

THE DOWNFALL OF MACHIA- 
VELLI CLAY 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE DOWNFALL OF MACHIAVELLI CLAY 

MACHIAVELLI CLAY Is one who 
looks seldom from the window and 
often in the glass. No man carries 
himself more upon the back of his own regard 
than does Machiavelli Clay. He believes in the 
wisdom of the classes, the ignorance of the 
masses, and thinks that government should be 
of people, by statesmen, for statesmen. Also 
he has a profound respect for Money, and little 
for perishing flesh and blood. As to each of 
these thought-conditions he lives In head-on col- 
lision with the General, who in all things is his 
precise contradiction. 

As a guide by which the popular view may 
direct Itself, Machiavelli Clay asks the Senate to 
pass a vote of censure upon the General. With 
the help of Statesman Calhoun, he puts it 
through. The Clay-invoked " censure " strikes 
these sparks from the General: 
19 279 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

" Major," he cries, thinking on his saw- 
handles as he and Wizard Lewis sit with their 
evening pipes, " if I Hve to get these robes of 
office off, I may yet bring that rascal to a dear 
account." 

Banker Biddle, now when his precious Bank 
for its life or death will be made the campaign 
issue, is not without those pale misgivings which 
ever shake the livid heart of Money on the eve 
of war. Observing this knee-knocking trepida- 
tion, Machiavelli Clay attempts to give him 
courage. This is no difficult task for Machia- 
velli Clay to undertake; since, in his native ig- 
norance of the popular, he harbors no doubt of 
the General's downfall. Also he extends cheer- 
ing word the more readily to the quaking Bank- 
er Biddle, because the latter and his jeopardized 
Bank are to furnish those golden sinews of war, 
which will be required for the Whig campaign. 

Machiavelli Clay uplifts the confidence of 
Banker Biddle to a point where the latter, from 
his money lair in Philadelphia, WTltes him the 
following : 

" He (the General) has all the fury of a 
chained panther biting the bars of its cage — a 
condition which I think should contribute to re- 
lieve the country of the tyranny of this mlser- 
280 



MACHIAVELLI CLAY 

able man. You, my dear sir, are destined to be 
the instrument of that deliverance, and at no 
period of your life has the public had a deeper 
stake in you." 

In so writing to Machiavelli Clay, Banker 
Biddle permits his hopes to overrun his intelli- 
gence. Machiavelli Clay is not to become " the 
deliverer " of his hour, nor shall the *' chained 
panther " in the White House be cast out. 
Machiavelli Clay, however, is no Elijah gifted 
of prophecy; but, on the wooden-witted other 
hand, proves quite as besotted touching the fu- 
ture as does Banker Biddle. He replies to that 
financier in these words: 

" Fear not; there shall come a cleansing of 
the Augean stables ! Our cause cannot fail ! 
That veto of the Bank charter is a broad con- 
fession of the incompetency of the Administra- 
tion, and shows him (the General) unfit to 
carry on the business of government. I think 
we are authorized to confidently anticipate his 
defeat." 

Now when the candidates of the Democratic 
party are about to be named, Statesman Cal- 
houn foresees that he himself will be ignored, 
and ex-Cabineteer Van Buren supplant him, 
nominationally, for the place of Vice-President. 
281 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

To save his chagrin, and on the principle that 
when one is about to be thrown out it is wise 
to go out, he resigns from his vice-presiden- 
tial perch, lays down the Senate gavel, and 
returns to his home-state of South Carolina. 
Once there, following the Kentucky example of 
Machiavelli Clay, he sees to it that his own 
Legislature returns him to Washington as a 
Senator. 

Statesman Calhoun abandons hope of mak- 
ing his appearance as a White House candidate 
in the campaign at hand. What then? He is 
of middle years, and can wait. He will lie back 
and watch the struggle between the General 
and Machiavelli Clay. Let victory fall where 
it may, he. Statesman Calhoun, will prepare 
himself for his own sure triumph in the con- 
flict four years away. Which demonstrates 
that, while his judgment is crippled, his ambi- 
tion stands as tall and as straight as a mountain 
pine. 

The tickets are brought to the field — the 
General against Machiavelli Clay, with ex-Cab- 
ineteer Van Buren, and a Whig obscurity 
named Sargent running for second place. The 
issue presents the alternative — the General or 
the Bank, humanity in a death-hug with Money. 
282 



MACHIAVELLI CLAY 

Machiavelll Clay and Banker Biddle have no 
fears; for they are gold-blind and can see noth- 
ing beyond themselves. They are given a rude 
awakening. The people speak; and when the 
sound of that speaking dies out, the General has 
overwhelmed Machiavelli Clay with two hun- 
dred and nineteen electoral votes against the 
latter's sixty-nine. Machiavelli Clay and Bank- 
er Biddle and the Bank go down, while the 
General — ever the conqueror and never once 
the conquered — sweeps back to the presidency. 
Also ex-Cabineteer Van Buren is made Vice- 
President, as aforetime resolved upon by the 
General and Wizard Lewis, and from that 
Senate eminence, so lately vacated by Statesman 
Calhoun, will wield the gavel over togaed dis- 
cussion. 

The General, President the second time, picks 
up the reins, settles himself upon the box, and 
proceeds to drive his governmental times after 
this wise. He kills out what fev/ sparks of life 
still animate the Biddle Bank. He removes the 
Creeks and Cherokees from Florida and Geor- 
gia, and thereby guarantees the scalp on many 
an innocent head. He throws open the public 
lands for settlement at nominal figures. He 
fosters a gold currency and discourages paper. 
283 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

He pays off the last splinter of the national 
debt, and offers to the wondering eyes of his- 
tory the spectacle of a country that doesn't owe 
a dollar. He makes commercial treaties with 
every tribe of Europe. Finally, he compels 
France to pay five millions in gold for outrages 
long ago committed upon the sailors of America. 

The last is not brought about without some 
show of force, France, at the General's de- 
mand, falls into a white heat of rage and 
froths for Instant war. The General takes 
France at her warlike word, notifies Congress, 
and orders his fleet into the Mediterranean, the 
flagship Constitution in the van. 

The cool vigor of the move sets France gasp- 
ing. She consults England across the Channel, 
and is privily assured that whipping a Yankee 
eighty-gun ship is a feat so difficult of marine 
accomplishment that, like the blossoming of the 
century plant, it would be foolish to look for it 
oftener than once in one hundred years. It is 
England's impression, whispered in the Frank- 
ish ear, that it will be cheaper to pay the five 
millions. Whereupon, France breaks into dip- 
lomatic smiles, assures the General that her late 
war-rage was mere humor and her froth a jest. 
And pays. 

284 



MACHIAVELLI CLAY 

By way of a little junket, the General visits 
New England, and at the genial sight of him 
that chill region thaws like icicles in July. In- 
deed, the New England temperature rises to a 
height where Harvard College confers upon X 
the General the degree of Doctor of Laws. At 
which Statesman Adams nurses his wrath with 
this entry in his sour diary; 

*' Seminaries of learning have been time- x 
servers and sycophants in every age." 

The General has done his people many a 
service. He has defended them from savage 
Red Stick Creeks, and savage Red-coat English 
with their war cry of " Beauty and Booty! " 
Now he will do his foremost work of all, and 
buckler them against the javelins of treason, V' 
save them from between the jaws of a con- 
spiracy — wolfish and widespread for national 
destruction. 

The conspiracy has its birth in the ambition- 
crazed bosom of Statesman Calhoun; its shibo- 
leth is "Nullification! " 

*' I would sooner," said Caesar, when his 
courtiers were laughing at the pompous mayor 
of a little mud town in Spain — " I would 
sooner be first here than second in Rome ! " 
And, centuries after, the sentiment wakes a re- 
285 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

sponslve echo in the jealous breast of Statesman 
Calhoun. 

Statesman Calhoun aims to follow the Gen- 
eral in the headship of American affairs. De- 
feated of that, he is resolved to sever those 
constitutional links which bind his home-state 
of South Carolina to her sister States in Federal 
Union, and declare her a nation by and of 
herself. 

In his new role of " seceder," Statesman Cal- 
houn makes this impression on the English 
Harriet Martineau. After speaking of him as 
Involving himself tighter and tighter in spin- 
nings of political mysticism and fantastic specu- 
lation, she calls him a " cast-iron man " and 
says : 

"He (Calhoun) Is eager, absorbed, over- 
speculative. I know of no one who lives In 
such Intellectual solitude. He meets men and 
harangues them by the fireside as In the Senate. 
He Is wrought like a piece of machinery, set 
^ going vehemently by a weight, and stops while 
you answer. He either passes by what you say, 
or twists it into suitability with what Is in his 
head, and begins to lecture again. He is full 
of his ' Nullification,' and those who know the 
force that is in him and his utter incapacity for 
modification by other minds, will no more ex- 

286 



MACHIAVELLI CLAY 

pect repose and self -retention from him than 
from a volcano in full force. Relaxation is no 
longer in the power of his will. I never saw 
anyone who gave me so completely the idea of 
' possession.' " 

By which the English woman would say that 
she thinks Statesman Calhoun insane. She 
overstates, however, his *' incapacity for modi- 
fication " and " self-retention." There will 
come a day when he does not pause, nor close 
his eyes in sleep, between Washington and his 
home in South Carolina, such is his fear-spurred 
eagerness — with the shadow of the gibbet all 
across him ! — to stamp out what fires of treason 
he has been at pains to kindle, and avoid that 
halter which the General promises as their re- 
ward. 

It is in Senate debate that Statesman Calhoun 
removes the mask from his intended treason, 
and gives the world a glimpse of its blackness. 
He threatens, unless the tariff be changed to 
match his pleasure, that South Carolina will 
prevent its enforcement within her borders. 
He declares South Carolina superior to the na- 
tion in her powers, and proclaims for her the 
right to " nullify " what Federal laws she deems 
inimical to her peculiar interest. He shows how 
287 



X 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

South Carolina will, as against the tariff con- 
templated, invoke that inherent right to " nul- 
lify," and says, should the Washington govern- 
ment attempt to coerce her, she will take herself 
out of the Union. 

To this exposition of States rights, the Gen- 
eral in the White House listens with gathering 
scorn. He turns to Wizard Lewis : 

" Why, sir," he cries, addressing that Merlin 
of politics, *' if one is to believe Calhoun, the 
Union is like a bag of meal open at both ends. 
No matter how you pick it up, the meal all runs 
out. I shall tie the bag and save the country ! " 

Treason, however base, will have its friends, 
and Statesman Calhoun goes not without " Nul- 
lification " followers. In his own mischievous 
State the doctrine is received with open arms. 
The Governor issues his proclamation; a con- 
vention of the people is authorized by the 
y. Legislature, They are to meet at Colum- 
bia and settle the details of " Nullification " 
in its practical workings out. They do meet; 
and adopt unanimously an " Ordinance of Nul- 
lification " which declares the tariff just made 
in Washington " Null, void, and no law, nor 
binding upon this State, its officers or citizens." 
They decree that no duties, enjoined by such 
288 




^^^^^ y^^^Z^^^ 



MACHIAVELLI CLAY 

tariff, shall be paid or permitted to be paid in 
any port of South Carolina. The closing as- 
sertion of the " Ordinance " runs that, should 
the Government of the United States try by 
force to collect the tariff duties, *' The people 
of South Carolina will thenceforth hold them- 
selves absolved from all further obligation to 
maintain or preserve their political connection 
with the people of the other States, and will 
proceed to organize a separate government, and 
do all other acts and things which sovereign 
and independent States may of right do." 

Following this doughty setting-out of what 
one might call the Palmetto-rattlesnake position, 
the Governor suggests military associations on 
the model of the Minute Men of the Revolu- 
tion, and makes ready for what blood-letting 
shall be required to sustain Statesman Calhoun 
in his new preachment. Altogether it is a South 
Carolina day of bombast and blue cockades, 
with Statesman Calhoun already chosen as the 
president of a coming " Southern Confederacy." 

While these dour matters are in process of 
Palmetto transaction, Statesman Hayne encoun- 
ters the lion-faced Webster on the floor of the 
Senate, and the latter establishes forever the 
rightful supremacy of the Federal Union, and 
289 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

demonstrates that the " Nullification " set up 
by Statesman Calhoun is but the chimera of a 
jaundiced, ambition-bitten mind. Thus canters 
the hour in the Senate and in South Carolina; 
while up in the White House the General sits 
reading a book. 



XXIII 

THE FEDERAL UNION: IT 
MUST BE PRESERVED 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE FEDERAL UNION: IT MUST BE PRESERVED 

THE General is reading his book, when 
in walks Wizard Lewis. The latter 
necromancer casually alludes to 
Statesman Calhoun, and his pet infamy of 
•' Nullification." At this the General's honest 
rage begins to mount. 

" You bear witness, Major," he cries — " you 
bear witness how Calhoun is trying me ! But 
by the living heavens, I'll uphold the law ! " 
Then, shaking the ponderous tome at Wizard 
Lewis, his finger marking the place — " Here ! ^ 
I've been reading what old John Marshall said 
in the case of Aaron Burr. He makes treason 
in its definition as plain as a pikestaff. A man 
can't think treason ; he can't talk treason ; he can 
only act treason. It requires an act — an overt 
act! Calhoun is safe while he only talks or 
conspires. But let one of his followers perform 
one act of opposition to the law, even if it be no 
293 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

more than hand on sword hilt or just the snap- 
ping of a fireless flint against an empty rifle- 
pan, and I have him. There would be the overt 
act demanded by old Marshall; and he goes on 
to say that the overt act, once committed, at- 
taches to all of the conspirators and becomes 
the act of each. I shall keep my ear as well 
as my eye, Major, on Calhoun's State of South 
Carolina; and, at the first crackling of a treas- 
onable twig beneath a traitorous foot, into a 
felon's cell goes he. Then we shall see what a 
hempen noose will do for him and his ' Nulli- 
fication.' " 

The General, the better to deliver this long 
oration, gets up and walks the floor. Having 
concluded, down he drops into his chair again, 
and to grubbing at old John Marshall. 

The General and Wizard Lewis decide that 
a perfect White House silence concerning 
" Nullification " is the proper course. The 
General will sit mute, and never by so much 
as the arching of a bushy brow intimate what 
he will do, should Statesman Calhoun push his 
treason to that last extreme — that overt act of 
opposition to the Federal law and its enforce- 
ment, demanded by the great Chief Justice. 
And so, while arises all this turmoil of treason 
294 



THE FEDERAL UNION 

in the Senate and South Carolina, the White 
House is as voiceless as a tomb. 

While the General is silent, he Is in no sort 
Idle. He makes secret preparations to bruise 
the head of the serpent of secession with a heel 
of steel. He sends General Scott to South Caro- 
lina. Into Castle Pinckney he conveys thou- 
sands of rifles. One by one his warships drop 
into Charleston harbor, until, with broadsides 
trained upon the town, sc6res of them ride at 
ominous anchor. 

The General gets word to his ever-reliable 
Coffee. In those well-nigh twenty years which 
have come and gone since the English were 
swept up In fire at New Orleans, the hunting- 
shirt men in the General's country of Tennes- 
see have Increased and multiplied. Their num- 
bers are such that at the end of twenty days the 
energetic Coffee stands ready to cataract twenty- ''^^ 
five thousand of them into South Carolina 
at the lifting of the General's bony finger, 
and follow these In forty days with twenty-five 
thousand more. Not content with his fifty 
thousand hunting-shirt men from Tennessee, 
the General arranges for an equal force from 
North Carolina and Georgia. 

If ever a people stood within the shadow of 
20 295 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

doom it is our treason-forging ones of South 
Carolina in these days of Nullilication, Colum- 
bia Conventions, Minute Men, and Blue Cock- 
ades. 

Some of them are not so dim of eye but 
what they perceive as much, and begin to catch 
their breath. Still a wrong, once it be set roll- 
ing like a stone down hill, is difficult to over- 
take and stop. So, while the heart of would-be 
Treason beats a little faster, and its cheek turns 
a little whiter, as inklings of what the wordless 
General is doing begin to creep about among 
Palmetto-rattlesnake coteries, the work of mak- 
ing ready for black revolt proceeds. 

In Washington, that grim silence of the 
White House grows oppressive. There be 
prudent ones, among the nullifying adherents 
of Statesman Calhoun, who are willing to play 
the part of traitor if no peril attend the role. 
They are highly averse to the character if it 
promise to thrust their sensitive necks into gal- 
lows danger. The questions everywhere on the 
whispering lips of these timid treason mongers 
are: 

" What is the Jackson intention? What will 
the President do? Will he look upon Nullifi- 
cation as merely some minor sin of politics? 
296 



THE FEDERAL UNION 

Or, will he treat it as stark treason, and fall 
back on courts and hangman's ropes?" 

No one answers, for no one knows. As for 
the General himself, his lips are as dumb as 
a statue's. Traitors may go wrong, or go 
right; he will light no lamp for their guidance. 
The awful suspense is carrying many of the 
treason mongers to the brink of hysteria. Even 
Statesman Calhoun, morbid and ambition-mad, 
is made to pause. He himself begins to wonder 
if it would not be as well and as wise to meas- 
ure in advance those iron-bound anti-treason 
lengths to which the General stands ready to 

go- 
To help them in their perplexity, Statesman 

Calhoun and his Nullifying followers evolve a 
cunning scheme. In its amiable execution, it 
should lay bare, they think, the purposes of 
the General. Statesman Calhoun and his co- 
conspirators have long ago laid claim to the 
dead Jefferson as their patron saint of " Nul- 
lification," asserting that precious tenet to be 
his invention. They decide to give a dinner 
in honor of the departed publicist. The din- 
ner shall take place on the dead Jefferson's 
birthday at the Indian Queen. The General 
shall come as a guest. Statesman Calhoun and 
297 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

his co-conspirators will be there. Statesman 
Calhoun will offer a toast, declaratory of those 
superior rights over the Federal government 
which he asserts in fav^or of the separate States. 
It shall be a Nullification toast, one redolent 
of a State's right to secede from the Federal 
Union. 

Statesman Calhoun having launched his fire- 
ship of sentiment, the General will be requested 
to give a toast. Should he comply, it is be- 
lieved by Statesman Calhoun and his co-con- 
spirators that he will in partial measure at 
least unlock his plans. If he refuse — why then, 
under the circumstances, his refusal will be 
pregnant of meaning. In either event, he will 
be beneath the batteries of five hundred eyes, 
and much should be read in his face. 

That Jefferson dinner is an admirable device, 
one adapted to draw the General's fire. Its 
authors go about felicitating themselves upon 
their sagacity in evolving it. 

" What say you, Major? " asks the General, 
when he receives the invitation upon which so 
much of national good or ill may pend; *' what 
say you? Shall we humor them? You know 
what these Calhoun traitors are after." 

"True!" responds Wizard Lewis; "they 
298 



THE FEDERAL UNION 

want to count us, and measure us, in that busi- 
ness of their proposed treason." 

" I'll tell you what I think," says the Gen- 
eral, after a pause. " I'll fail to attend; but 
you shall go, and be counted in my stead. Also, 
since they'll expect a toast from me, I'll send 
them one in your care. I hope they may find 
it to their villain liking — they and their arch- 
traitor Calhoun! " 

The Indian Queen is a crowded hostelry that 
Jefferson night. The halls and waiting rooms 
are thronged of eminent folk. Some are there 
to attend the dinner; others for gossip and to 
hear the news. As Wizard Lewis climbs the 
stairs to the banquet room on the second floor, 
he encounters the lion-faced Webster coming 
down. 

" There's too much secession in the air for 
me," says the lion-faced one, shrugging his 
heavy shoulders. 

" If that be so," returns Wizard Lewis, *' it's 
a reason for remaining," 

Wizard Lewis mingles with the groups in 
the corridors and parlors, for the banquet hall 
is not yet thrown open. Among these, he nods 
his recognition of Colonel Johnson, of Ken- 
tucky, tall of form, grave of brow, he who slew 
299 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Tecumseh; Senator Benton, once of that safe 
receptive cellar; the lean Rufus Choate, eaten 
of Federalism and the worship of caste; Tom 
Corwin, round, humorous, with a face of ruddy 
fun; Isaac Hill, gray and lame, the General's 
Senate friend from New Hampshire whose in- 
sulted credit started the war on Banker Biddle's 
bank; Editor Noah, of New York, as Hebraic 
and ^s red of head as Absalom ; the quick-eyed 
Amos Kendall; Editor Blair, who conducts the 
Globe, the General's mouthpiece in Washing- 
ton; the reckless Marcy, who declares that he 
sees " no harm in the aphorism that ' to the vic- 
tor belong the spoils of the enemy.' '' 

The dinner is spread. The decorations are 
studied in their democracy. Hundreds of can- 
dles in many-armed iron branches blaze and 
gutter about the great room. The high ceil- 
ings and the walls are festooned of flags. The 
stars and stripes are draped over a portrait of 
the dead Jefferson. Here and there are hung 
the flags of the several States. With peculiar 
ostentation, and as though for challenge, next 
to the national colors flows the Palmetto- 
rattlesnake flag of South Carolina — Statesman 
Calhoun's emblem. 

The dinner is profuse, and folk of appetite 
300 



THE FEDERAL UNION 

and fineness declare it elegant. There Is none 
of your long-drawn courses, so dear to Whigs 
and Federalists. Black servants come and go, 
to shift plates and knives, and carve at the call 
of a guest. At hopeful Intervals along the 
tables repose huge sirloins, and steaming rounds 
of beef. There are quail pies; chickens fried 
and turkeys roasted; pies of venison and rab- 
bits, and pot pies of squirrels; soups and fishes 
and vegetables; boiled hams, and giant dishes 
of earthenware holding baked beans; roast 
suckling pigs, each with a crab-apple in his 
jaws; corn breads and flour breads, and pan- 
cakes rolled with jellies; puddings — Indian, 
rice, and plum; mammoth quaking custards. 
Everywhere bristle ranks and double ranks of 
bottles and decanters ; a widest range of drinks, 
from whisky to wine of the Cape, is at every- 
body's elbow. Also on side tables stand wooden 
bowls of salads, supported by weighty cheeses; 
and, to close in the flanks, pies — mince, pump- 
kin, and apple; with final cofi^ee and slim, 
long pipes of clay In which to smoke tobacco 
of Trinidad. 

As the guests seat themselves. Chairman Lee 
proposes : 

'* The memory of Thomas Jefferson.'* 
301 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

The toast is drunk, in silence. Then, with 
clatter of knife and fork, clink of glasses, and 
hum of conversation, the feast begins. 

The General's absence Is a daunting surprise 
to many who do not know how to construe it. 
Wizard Lewis, through Chairman Lee, pre- 
sents the General's regrets. He expected to be 
present, but is unavoidably detained at the 
White House. The " regrets " are received 
uneasily; the General's absence plainly gives 
concern to more than one. 

As the dinner marches forward, " Nullifica- 
tion " and secession are much and loudly talked. 
They become so openly the burden of conversa- 
tion and are withal so loosely in the common 
air, that sundry gentlemen — more timorous 
than loyal perhaps — make pointless excuses, 
and withdraw. 

Statesman Calhoun sits on the right hand 
of Chairman Lee. The festival approaches the 
glass and bottle stage, and toasts are offered. 
There are a round score of these; each smells 
of secession and State's rights. The speeches 
which follow are even more malodorous of 
treason than the toasts. 

The hour is hurrying toward the late. 
Statesman Calhoun whispers a word to Chair- 
302 



THE FEDERAL UNION 

man Lee; evidently the urgent moment is at 
hand. 

Statesman Calhoun hands a slip of paper 
to Chairman Lee. There falls a stillness; 
laughter dies and talk is hushed. 

Chairman Lee rises to his feet. He pays 
Statesman Calhoun many flowery compliments. 

" The distinguished statesman from South 
Carolina," says Chairman Lee in conclusion, 
" begs to propose this sentiment." He reads 
from the slip : " ' The Federal Union ! Next to 
our liberty, the most dear ! May we all remem- 
ber that it can only be preserved by respecting 
the rights of the States, and distributing equally 
the burdens and the benefits of that Union ! ' " 

The stillness of death continues — marked 
and profound; for, as Chairman Lee resumes 
his seat, Wizard Lewis rises. All know his re- 
lations with the General; every eye is on him 
with a look of interrogation. Now when the 
Calhoun toast has been read, they scan the face 
of Wizard Lewis, representative of the absent 
General, to note the effect of the shot. Wiz- 
ard Lewis is admirable, and notably steady. 

" The President," says Wizard Lewis, 
" when he sent his regrets, sent also a senti- 
ment." 

303 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Wizard Lewis passes a folded paper to 
Chairman Lee, who opens it and reads : 

*' * The Federal Union ! It must be pre- 
served ! ' " 

The words fall clear as a bell — for some, 
perhaps, a bell of warning. Statesman Cal- 
houn's face is high and insolent. But only for 
a moment. Then his glance falls; his brow 
becomes pallid, and breaks into a pin-point 
sprinkle of sweat. He seems to shrink and sear 
and wither, as though given some fleeting pic- 
ture of the future, and the gallows prophecy 
thereof. In the end he sits as though in a kind 
of blackness of despair. The General is not 
there, but his words are there, and Statesman 
Calhoun is not wanting of an impression of the 
terrible meaning, personal to himself, which 
underlies them. 

It is a moment ominous and mighty — a mo- 
ment when a plot to stampede history is foiled 
by a sentiment, and Treason's heart and Trea- 
son's hand are palsied by a toast of seven 
words. And while Statesman Calhoun, white 
and frightened and broken, is helpless in the 
midst of his followers, the General sits alone 
and thoughtful with his quiet White House 
pipe. 

304 



THE FEDERAL UNION 

For all the plain sureness of that toast, the 
would-be rebellionists now crave a surer sign. 
A member of Congress from South Carolina, 
polite and insinuating, calls on the General. 

" Mr. President," says the insinuating sign- 
seeking one, suavely deferential, " to-morrow I 
go back to my home. Have you any message 
for the good folk of South Carolina? " 

" Yes," returns the General grimly, his hard 
blue eyes upon the insinuating one, while his 
heavy brows are lowered in that falcon-trick of 
menace — " yes; I have a message for the ' good 
folk of South Carolina.' You may say to the 
' good folk of South Carolina ' that if one of 
them so much as lift finger in defiance of the 
laws of this government, I shall come down 
there. And I'll hang the first man I lay hands 
on, to the first tree I can reach." 



XXIV 
THE ROUT OF TREASON 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE ROUT OF TREASON 

DEMOCRACY goes not without its de- 
fects, and there be times when that 
very freedom wherewith it invests 
the citizen spreads a snare to his feet. For a 
chief fault, Democracy is apt to mislead am- 
bitious ones, dominated of ego and a want of 
patriotism in even parts. Such are prone to 
run liberty into license in following forth the 
appetites of their own selfishness, and forget 
where the frontiers of loyalty leave off and 
those of black treason begin. 

In a democracy, for your clambering nar- 
rowist to turn traitor is never a far-fetched task. 
Being free to speak as he politically will and, 
per incident, think as he politically will, he finds 
it no mighty journey to the perilous assumption 
that he may act as he politically will. Know- 
ing his duty to guard the temple, he argues 
therefrom his right to deface it. Treason fades 
309 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

into a mere abstraction — a crime curious in this, 
that it is impossible of concrete commission. 

Statesman Calhoun is among these ill-guided 
ones of topsy-turvy patriotism. Blurred by 
ambition, soured of disappointment, license and 
liberty have grown with him to be unconscious 
synonyms. The laws against treason carry 
only a remonstrance, never a warning, and — as 
he reads them — but deplore that civic villainy, 
while threatening nothing of grief for what 
dark souls shall be guilty of it. In this frame 
the General's stark sentiment, " The Federal 
Union ! It must be preserved ! " and that sub- 
sequent hanging promise which, by the mouth 
of the suave insinuating one, he sends to " the 
good folk of South Carolina," go beyond sur- 
prise with Statesman Calhoun, and provide a 
shock. It is as though, walking in a trance of 
treason, he knocks his head against the White 
House wall; his awakening is rudely, painfully 
complete. That dream of a separate nation, 
with himself at its head, gives way to hangman 
visions of rope and gallows tree; and, from 
bending his energies to methods by which he 
may take South Carolina out of the Union, he 
gives himself wholly to the more tremulous 
enterprise of keeping himself out of jail. 
310 



THE ROUT OF TREASON 

Some hint of that recent literature, which the 
General found so interesting, gets abroad, and 
many go reading the lucid dictum of old Mar- 
shall, Treason as a crime becomes better un- 
derstood; and — by Statesman Calhoun at least 
— better feared. Moved of these fears, States- 
man Calhoun sends message after message into 
his restless Palmetto-rattlesnake State of South 
Carolina commanding, nay imploring, a present 
suspension of " Nullification." His Palmetto- 
rattlesnake adherents, while not understanding 
the danger which fringes them about, have al- 
ready found enough that is alarming in the 
very air; and, for their own safety as much 
as his, are heedful to regard that prayer for a 
" Nullification " passivity. The South Caro- 
lina shouting ceases; the Minute Men rest on 
their traitorous arms; the manufacture of blue 
cockades is abandoned; while the Columbia 
convention devotes itself to innocuous adjourn- 
ments from innocent day to day. 

While Palmetto-rattlesnake affairs are thus 
timidly quiescent, the Senate itself — having 
read old Marshall, and being, moreover, some- 
what instructed by the watchful attitude of the 
General, who sits in the White House a figure 
of frowning menace, both relentless and fateful 
21 311 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

— devotes itself to the scaffold extrication of 
Statesman Calhoun, Machiavelli Clay leads 
the rescue party. His is of an opposite politi- 
cal church to that of Statesman Calhoun; but 
the pair meet on the warm, common ground of 
a deathless hatred of the General. Under the 
mollifying guidance of Machiavelli Clay, Sena- 
tor after Senator surrenders those pet schedules 
of tariff desired of his own people, and puts 
the surrender on the expressive basis of " saving 
the neck of Calhoun." 

When every possible tariff cut has been ar- 
ranged, and Congress adjourns, Statesman Cal- 
houn makes his memorable homeward flight. 
Horse after horse he rides down, night becomes 
as day; for Death crouches on his crupper, and 
he must stay the Nullifying hand of South 
Carolina to save his own neck. He succeeds 
beyond his deserts, and comes powdering into 
Columbia, worn and wan and anxious, yet none 
the less ahead of that " overt act " whereof old 
Marshall spoke, and for which the somber Gen- 
eral waits. 

Once among his own treason-hatching co- 
terie, Statesman Calhoun loses no moments, but 
breaks up the " Nullification " nest. Secession 
dies in the shell, and the Columbia convention, 
312 



THE ROUT OF TREASON 

with more speed even than it displayed in pass- 
ing It, repeals that " Ordinance of Nullifica- 
tion." Thereupon Statesman Calhoun draws 
his breath more freely, as one who has been 
grazed by the sinister fangs of Fate; while the 
Inveterate General heaves a sigh of regret. 

Wizard Lewis overhears the sigh, and ques- 
tions it. At this the General explains his dis- 
appointment. 

" It would have been better," says he, " had 
we shed a little blood. This Is not the end. 
Major; the serpent of treason Is only bruised, 
not slain. Had Calhoun run his course, a 
handful of hundreds might have died. As af- 
fairs stand, however, the country must one day 
wade knee-deep In blood to save itself. These 
men are not honest. Their true purpose is the 
downfall of the Union. Their present pretext 
Is tariff; next time It will be slavery." 

By way of bringing the iniquity of " Nul- 
lification " before the people, together with his 
views concerning It, the General seizes his big 
iron pen, and scratches off a proclamation. 

" I consider," says he, " the power to annul 
a law of the United States, assumed by one 
State, incompatible with the existence of the 
Union, contradicted expressly by the Constltu- 

313 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

tion, unauthorized by either Its letter or Its 
spirit, inconsistent with every principle upon 
which it was founded, and destructive of the 
great object for which It was formed." 

The country, reading the General's exposi- 
tion of the Union and its Gibraltar-like char- 
acter, breaks into bonfires, oratory, dinners, 
barbecues, parades, and what other schemes of 
jubilation are practiced by a free people. That 
Is to say the country breaks Into these sundry 
jubilant things, If one except the truant State of 
South Carolina. In that Palmetto-rattlesnake- 
ridden commonwealth there prevails a sulky 
silence. No bonfires blaze, no barbecues scorch, 
no dinners smoke, no parades march. Baffled 
In its would-be treasons, afraid to stretch forth 
Its nullifying hand lest the sword of retribu- 
tion strike It off at the wrist, it comports itself 
like a spoiled child thwarted, and upholds its 
little dignity with a pout. No one heeds, how- 
ever; and, beyond an occasional baleful glance 
from the General, the rest of the world leaves 
it to recover from that pout In its own time and 
way. 

When Congress reconvenes. Statesman Cal- 
houn creeps back to his Senate place. But the 
perils through which he has passed have left 

3^^ 



THE ROUT OF TREASON 

their furrowing traces, and now he offers noth- 
ing, says nothing, does nothing. His heart is 
water; his evil potentialities have oozed away. 
Haunted of that hangman fear which still hag- 
rides him, he abides mute, motionless, impo- 
tent, like some Satan in chains. 

To further wound Statesman Calhoun, and 
in the mean, protesting teeth of Machiavelli 
Clay, the Senate expunges from its record the 
vote of censure it once passed upon the Gen- 
eral. The resolution to expunge is offered by 
Senator Benton who, as against a far-off Nash- 
ville hour when only a generous cellar saved 
him from the General's saw-handle, is to-day the 
latter's partisan and friend. The General is 
hugely pleased by the censure-expunging resolu- 
tion, and has what Senate ones supported it — 
being fairly the whole Senate, when one forgets 
Machiavelli Clay, and our chained, embittered 
Satan, Statesman Calhoun — to a grand dinner 
in the East Room. 

And now the official times wag prosperously 
with the General. His friends are everywhere 
dominant, his enemies everywhere in retreat. 
Also his hair, from iron gray, fades to milk- 
white. 

Since nothing peculiar presses upon him in 
315 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

the way of opposition, the General falls ill. He 
makes little of this, however; and cures himself 
with tobacco, coffee, calomel, and lancets, while 
outraged doctors groan. Likewise, he burns 
midnight oil in planning with Wizard Lewis 
the elevation of Vice-President Van Buren, 
who he is resolved shall have the presidency 
after him. 

While thus the General lays his Van Buren 
plans, misguided admirers bombard him with 
such marks of their regard as a phaeton built 
of unbarked hickory, and a cheese weighing 
fourteen hundred pounds. The latter sturdy 
confection Is trundled Into the White House 
kitchen, from which coign of vantage It sends 
on high a perfume so utterly urgent that none 
may stay In the White House until It Is re- 
moved. Following its going, the executive win- 
dows are thrown open throughout a wind-swept 
afternoon, to the end that the last suffocating 
reminder of that cheese shall be eliminated. 

The General's hours as President are draw- 
ing to a close. His hopes touching a succes- 
sor carry through triumphantly, and Vice-Presi- 
dent Van Buren is selected to follow him. 
Neither Machiavelli Clay for the Whigs, nor 
Statesman Calhoun among the Democrats, has 
316 




7 7 2.^^(^ ^><-^ ^^C-^-^^c^ 



THE ROUT OF TREASON 

the courage to offer his own name to the 
people. 

Statesman Calhoun, aiming to subtract as 
much as he may from the fortunes of nominee 
Van Buren, produces a bolting ticket, headed 
by one Mangum; and, for Mangum, Palmetto- 
rattlesnake South Carolina — still in a tearful 
pout — wastes Its lonely arrow in the air. It 
was, it will be, ever thus with South Carolina, 
who might do herself a good, and come to some 
true notion of her own peevish Inconsequence, 
if she would but take a long, hard look In the 
glass. She is as one who attends the fairs, but 
so over-esteems herself as to defeat every bar- 
gain she might make. Her best chances are cast 
away, a cheap sacrifice to vanity, since no one 
will either buy her or sell her at the figure she 
sets on herself. Thus, too, will it continue. 
Her frayed prospects, already behind a fashion, 
are to wax more shopworn and more threadbare 
as the years unfold. 

Nominee Van Buren is elected to succeed the 
General In the White House, and every friend 
of the latter votes for the little polite man of 
KInderhook. The General Is delighted, since 
the elevation of nominee Van Buren provides 
for a continuation of his darling policies. 

317 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

Wizard Lewis is delighted, because the new 
situation permits the return of himself and his 
beloved General to their homes by the Cumber- 
land. Nor does it detract from the satisfac- 
tion of either that, with the presidential com- 
ing of the Kinderhook one, the final door of 
political hope is barred fast in the faces of 
Machiavelli Clay and Statesman Calhoun; for 
both the General and Wizard Lewis hate these 
two as though that hatred were a religious rite. 
At last dawns President Van Buren's in- 
auguration morning, and the General stands for 
the last time before a people whose good and 
whose honor he has so jealously guarded. Of 
this farewell appearance, poet Willis writes: 

"The air was elastic; the day bright and 
still. More than twenty thousand people had 
assembled. The procession, the General and 
Mr. Van Buren riding uncovered, arrived a 
little after noon. Their carriage, drawn by 
four grays, paused. Descending from it at the 
foot of the steps, a passage was made through 
the crowd, and the tall white head of the old 
chieftain went steadily up. The crowd of dip- 
lomats and senators to the rear gave way. A 
murmur of feeling rose up from the moving 
mass below, as the infirm old General, coming 
as he had from a sick chamber which his physi- 

318 



THE ROUT OF TREASON 

cians had thought it impossible he should leave, 
stood bowed before the people." 

In his address the General touches many 
things. He closes by saying: " My own race is 
nearly run. Advanced age and failing health 
warn me that I must soon pass beyond the reach 
of human events. I thank God my life has 
been spent in a land of liberty, and that He 
gave me a heart wherewith to love my country. 
Filled with gratitude, I bid you farewell." 



XXV 

THE GRAVE AT THE 
GARDEN'S FOOT 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE GRAVE AT THE GARDEN's FOOT 

THE General wends his slow way home- 
ward, and is two months about the 
journey. His progress, broken by 
many stops, is like both a triumph and a fu- 
neral; for double ranks of worshipers line the 
route and sob or cheer as he passes. The 
harsh horse-face is seamed of care and worn 
by sickness; but the slim form is still erect and 
lance-like, and the blue eyes gleam as hawkishly 
dangerous as when, behind his low mud walls 
with the faithful Coffee and his hunting-shirt 
men, he broke down England's pride at New 
Orleans. Everywhere the people press about 
him; for republics are not ungrateful, and for 
once in a way of politics it is the setting, not 
the rising sun upon which all eyes are centered. 
In the end he reaches home, and his country 
of the Cumberland, as on many a former day, 
opens its arms to receive him. 

323 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

And now the General, for all his sickness and 
his well-nigh threescore years and ten, must 
bend himself to his labors as a planter; for he 
has come back very poor. He has his acres 
and his slaves; but debts have piled themselves 
high, and the tooth of decay can do a devas- 
tating deal in eight years. 

The General goes to work as though life is 
just begun. The fences are renewed, the build- 
ings repaired, while the plow breaks fresh fur- 
rows in fields that have lain fallow too long. 
To finance his plans, he borrows ten thousand 
dollars from Editor Blair. Later, by a huddle 
of months. Congress repays him that one- 
thousand-dollar fine, of which a quarter of a 
century before he was mulcted in New Orleans. 
This latter, interest swollen, is twenty-seven 
hundred dollars — a sum not treated lightly in 
this hour of his narrowed fortunes ! 

All goes prosperously. The generous soil, as 
though for welcome to the General, grants such 
crops of cotton that the wondering Cumberland 
folk, as once they did aforetime, come miles to 
view his fields. When not busy with his plant- 
ing, the General is immersed In politics. Each 
day he rides down to Wizard Lewis four miles 
below; or Wizard Lewis rides those four miles 
324 



GRAVE AT GARDEN'S FOOT 

up to the Hermitage. Being together, the pair, 
over pipe and moderate glass, sagely consider 
the state of the nation. 

Down by the General's gate is a large- 
stomached mail box. Each morning finds it 
stuffed to suffocation with sheaves of letters and 
papers tied in bundles. Also there are shoals 
and shoals of visitors. For the General's home 
is a Mecca of politics, to which pilgrims of 
party turn their steps by ones and twos and tens. 
Some come to do the stark old General honor; 
some are one-time comrades, or friends who 
rose up around him on fields of party war. For 
the most, however, and because humanity is 
selfish before it is either just or generous, the 
visitors are oflice-seeking folk, who ask the 
magic of the General's signature to their ap- 
peals. 

These selfish ones become, in their vermin 
number and persistency, a very plague. They 
wring from the suffering General the follow- 
ing: 

" The good book, Major," says he to Wiz- 
ard Lewis, " tells us that at the beginning there 
were in Eden a man, a woman, and an office 
seeker who had been kicked out of heaven for 
preaching ' Nullification ' ! To judge of the 

325 



V/HEN MEN GREW TALL 

visiting procession, as it streams in and out of 
my front gate, I should say that the latter in 
his descendants has increased and multiplied far 
beyond the other two." 

The French king forgets and forgives those 
grievous five millions, and dispatches an artist 
of celebration to paint the General's portrait. 
The artist finds the latter of a mind to humor 
the French king. The portrait is painted — a 
striking likeness! — and the gratified artist car- 
ries it victoriously across seas to his royal 
master. 

The Glheral becomes concerned in keeping 
England from stealing Oregon, and writes let- 
ters to the Government at Washington in pro- 
test against it. 

" Oregon or war! " is his counsel. 

Just as deeply does he involve himself for 
the admission of Texas into the Union, declar- 
ing that of right the nation's boundary should 
be, and, save for the criminal carelessness of 
Statesman Adams on the occasion of the last 
treaty with Spain — made in a Monroe hour — 
would be, the Rio Grande. Statesman Adams, 
now in his icy old age, makes a speech in Bos- 
ton and denies this; whereat the General retorts 
in an open letter that Statesman Adams is " a 
326 




Andrew Jackson 
From a portrait made at The Hermitage, April 15, 1845. 



GRAVE AT GARDEN'S FOOT 

monarchist in disguise," a " traitor," a " falsi- 
fier," and his " entire address full of statements 
at war with truth, and sentiments hostile to 
every dictate of patriotism." 

Machiavelli Clay foolishly invades the Cum- 
berland country on a broad mission of personal 
politics, and he like Statesman Adams makes a 
speech. Machiavelli Clay, however, does not 
talk of Oregon, or Texas, or what shall be the 
nation's foreign policy, whether timid or war- 
like. His is wholly and solely a party oration, 
and in it he pays left-handed tribute to Aaron 
Burr, dead a decade. Machiavelli Clay escapes 
no better with his offensive eloquence than does 
Statesman Adams. The perilous old General 
from his Hermitage is instantly out upon him 
with another open letter, of which the closing 
paragraph says: 

" How contemptible does this lying dema- 
gogue appear, when he descends from his high 
place in the Senate, and roams over the country 
retailing slanders against the dead." 

The General is much refreshed by these out- 
bursts, and, in that contentment of soul which 
follows, resolves to join the church. Long ago 
he promised the blooming Rachel, fast asleep 
22 327 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

at the foot of the garden, that once he be free 
from the muddy yoke of politics he will accept 
religion, and now he keeps his word. He unites 
himself with the congregation which worships 
in that little chapel, aforetime built for the 
blooming Rachel, and, upon his coming into the 
fold, there arises vast rejoicing throughout the 
ardent length and breadth of Cumberland Pres- 
byterianism. 

The pastor. Dominie Edgar, calls often at 
the Hermitage; for he feels that the General 
may require some special spiritual grooming. 
One day he observes that convert's saw-handles, 
oiled and neat and ready for blood, on a man- 
tel, prayerfully crossed beneath a portrait of 
the blooming Rachel. The good dominie Is 
shocked, but does not show it. He picks up 
one of the saw-handles. 

" This has seen service, doubtless," he re- 
marks tentatively. 

"Ayl" responds the General grimly; "It 
has seen good service." 

Dominie Edgar puts the saw-handle back in 
place, and his curiosity pushes no farther afield. 
He rightly conjectures it to be the weapon 
which cut down the slanderous Dickinson, and 
mentally holds that it will more advantage the 
328 



GRAVE AT GARDEN'S FOOT 

soul of his convert to touch as scantily as may 
be upon topics so ferocious. Shifting his 
ground, Dominie Edgar asks: 

"General, do you forgive your enemies?" 

" Parson," says the convert, " I forgive my 
enemies, and welcome. But I shall never " — 
here he points up at the portrait of the bloom- 
ing Rachel, which seems to lovingly follow his 
every motion with its painted patient eyes — *' I 
shall never forgive her enemies. My feud shall 
follow them, and the memory of them, to the 
end of time." 

Dominie Edgar sits down with his convert 
to show him the error of his obdurate ways. 
He lectures cogently. It is to be feared, how- 
ever, that his doctrinal seed of forgiveness falls 
upon hard, intractable ground; for, while the 
convert says never a word, the lecture serves but 
to light again in those blue eyes what lamps of 
hateful battle burned there on a certain fierce 
May morning in that popular Kentucky wood. 

The long days come and go, and the Gen- 
eral lives on in fortune, peace, and honor. 
Then the end draws down ; for the General has 
run his threescore years and ten, and well-nigh 
ten years more. Wizard Lewis sits by his 
bedside, and never leaves him. 
329 



WHEN MEN GREW TALL 

" I want to go, Major," murmurs the Gen- 
eral to Wizard Lewis; " for she is over there." 
He raises his eyes to the portrait of the bloom- 
ing Rachel, and looks upon it long and lovingly. 
*' Major! " — ^Wizard Lewis presses the thin 
hand — " see that they make my grave by her 
side at the garden's foot! " 

The General drifts into a stupor, Wizard 
Lewis holding fast his hand. The good dom- 
inie Edgar is on his knees at prayer. From the 
porch outside the sick room are heard the sobs 
and moans of the mourning blacks. 

Wizard Lewis attempts to recall the dying 
General. 

" What would you have done with Cal- 
houn," he asks, " had he persisted in his ' Nul- 
lification ' designs? " 

The blue eyes rouse, and sparkle and glance 
with old-time fire. 

*' What would I have done with Calhoun? " 
repeats the General, his voice renewed and 
strong; "Hanged him, sir! — hanged him as 
high as Haman ! He should have been a warn- 
ing to traitors for all time! " 

The sparkle subsides; the blue eyes close 
again in the dullness of coming death. Wizard 
Lewis holds the poor thin hand, while Dom- 
330 



GRAVE AT GARDEN'S FOOT 

inie Edgar prays on to the accompaniment of 
the sobbing and the moaning of the sorrowing 
blacks. 

The prayer ends; the good dominie rises to 
his feet. 

"Do you know me, General?" he whis- 
pers. The dim eyes are lifted to those of Dom- 
inie Edgar. The latter goes on : " The love of 
the Lord is infinite! In it you shall find 
heaven ! " 

The General turns with looks of love to the 
portrait of the blooming Rachel. 

" Parson," says he, " I must meet her there, 
or it will be no heaven for me." 

The General's head droops heavily forward. 
Dominie Edgar falls upon his knees, and the 
voice of his praying goes upward with the 
moaning and the sobbing of the slaves. Wiz- 
ard Lewis places his hand on the General's 
breast. He sighs, and shakes his head. That 
mighty heart, all love, all iron, is still. 



(1) 

THE END 



^Extremely entcrtainingf because it is full of char- 
dictcfistic anecdotes/'— HARRY THURSTON PECK. 

The Man Roosevelt: A Portrait Sketch. 

By Francis E. Leupp, Washington Correspondent of 
the New York Evening Fast. Illustrated from Photographs. 
i2mo. Cloth, $1.25 net; postage, 12 cents additional. 

" Mr. Leupp has done the country a distinct and most important 
service in enabling the American people to see Mr. Roosevelt as one 
sincere and enlightened man." — TJu Washington Post, 

" It is frank, critical, straightforward, yet gives a picture of Theodore 
Roosevelt that will increase admiration of the man. The book through- 
out impresses the reader with its great moderation and strict adherence 
to truth." — The San Francisco Argonaut. 

" Mr. Leupp's book has an undeniable interest apart from the imme- 
diate appeal of his subject. His pen is one long trained in the art of 
picturesque presentation, and its cunning does not fail him here." 

— The Nation, 

" A book of the times, our own American times, we should call this. 
The author has not in any way glossed his estimate, but has told the 
brave tnith about the real President Roosevelt." — 7'he Boston Courier, 

■ " For the task he has undertaken Mr. Leupp is exceptionally well 
equipped. He is a trained observer and critic, and his book is full of 
passages which throw a novel and interesting light on the President's 
career and character." — The Nezu York Tribune. 

"A sane, well-balanced, interesting study of Mr. Roosevelt's char- 
acter and career. Though frankly favorable, it is critical in spirit and 
discriminating in its praise." — Chicago Record-Herald. 

" The book is in no sense a ' life ' of the President ; it is an attempt, 
a successful attempt, to throw light upon Mr. Roosevelt's personality, 
motives, and methods." — Public Opinion. 

" A book well worth the writing and publishing, and well worth the 
reading by any citizen, whatever his political views." 

— The Washington Star, 

" Mr. Leupp's book, like nearly all intensely personal and well, 
written narratives, is exceedingly interesting." — The Brooklyn Citizen. 

D. APPLETONAND COMPANY, NEW YORK, 



A PICTURESQUE BOOK OF THE SEA. 

A Sailor's Log. 

Recollections of Forty Tears of Naval Life. By Rear- 
Admiral Robley D. Evans, U. S. N. Illustrated. 
Large i2mo. Cloth, |2.oo. 

"It is essentially a book for men, young and old ; and the 
man who does not enjoy it is lacking in healthy red blood." — 
Chicago Bookseller. 

"A profoundly interesting book. There is not a line of bra- 
vado in its chapters, nor a carping criticism. It is a book which 
will increase the esteem and high honor which the American feels 
and willingly awards our naval heroes." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

"It would be difficult to find an autobiography possessing 
more interest than this narrative of forty years of active naval serv- 
ice. It equals the most fascinating novel for interest ; it contains 
a great deal of material that has a distinct historical value. . . , 
Altogether it is a most delightful book." — Brooklyn Eagle. 

"His is a picturesque personality, and he stands the supreme 
test by being as popular with his officers and men as he is with 
the public generally. His life has been one of action and adven- 
ture since he was a boy, and the record of it which he has pre- 
pared in his book 'A Sailor's Log' has noT a dull line in it from 
cover to cover. It is all action, action, and again action from the 
first page to the last, and makes one want to go and • do things ' 
himself. Any boy between ritteen and nineteen who reads this 
book and does not want to go to sea must be a sluggish youth. 
. . . The book is really an interesting record of an interesting 
man." — New York Press. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



UNLIKE ANY OTHER BOOK. 



A Virginia Girl in the Civil War. 

Being the Authentic Experiences of a Confederate 
Major's Wife who followed her Husband into Camp at 
the Outbreak of the War, Dined and Supped with General 
J. E. B. Stuart, ran the Blockade to Baltimore, and was 
in Richmond when it was Evacuated. Collected and 
edited by Myrta Lockett Avary. i2mo. Cloth, $1-25 
net ; postage additional. 

"The people described are gentlefolk to the back-bone, and the reader 
must be a hard-hearted cynic if he does not fall in love with the ingenuous 
and delightful girl who tells the story." — New York Sun. 

" The narrative is one that both interests and charms. The beginning of 
the end of the long and desperate struggle is unusually well told, and how 
the survivors lived during the last days of the fading Confederacy forms a 
vivid picture of those distressful times." — Baltimore Herald. 

"The style of the narrative is attractively informal and chatty. Its 
pathos is that of simplicity. It throws upon a cruel period of our national 
career a side-light, bringing out tender and softening interests too little visi- 
ble in the pages of formal history. " — New York World. 

" This is a tale that will appeal to every Southern man and woman, and 
can not fail to be of interest to every reader. It is as fresh and vivacious, 
even in dealing with dark days, as the young soul that underwent the hard- 
ships of a most cruel war." — Louisville Courier-yournal. 

" The narrative is not formal, is often fragmentary, and is always warmly 
human. . . . There are scenes among the dead and wounded, but as one 
winks back a tear the next page presents a negro commanded to mount a 
strange mule in midstream, at the injustice of which he strongly protests." — 
New York Telegram. 

"Taken at this time, when the years have buried all resentment, dulled 
all sorrows, and brought new generations to the scenes, a work of this kind 
can not fail of value just as it can not fail in interest. Official history moves 
with two great strides to permit of the smaller, more intimate events ; fiction 
lacks the realistic, powerful appeal of actuality ; such works as this must be 
depended upon to fill in the unoccupied interstices, to show us just what 
were the lives of those who were in this conflict or who lived in the midst of 
it without being able actively to participate in it. And of this type ' A Vir- 
ginia Girl in the Civil War' is a truly admirable e^^zm^Xt.."— Philadelphia 
Kecord. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



** EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD READ IT.'' 

— The Ne<ws, Providence, 



The Life and Times of Thomas Jefferson. 

By Thomas E. Watson, Author of "The Story of 
France," " Napoleon," etc. Illustrated with many Portraits 
and Views. 8vo. Attractively bound, $2.50 net ; postage, 
17 cents additional. 

Mr. Watson long since acquired a national reputation in connection 
with his political activities in Georgia. He startled (he public soon 
afterward by the publication of a history of France, which at once 
attracted attention quite as marked, though different in kind. His book 
became interesting not alone as the production of a Southern man 
interested in politics, but as an entirely original conception of a great 
theme. There was no question that a life of Jefferson from the hands of 
such a writer would command very general attention, and the publishers 
had no sooner announced the work as in preparation than negotiations 
were begun with the author by two of the best-known newspapers in 
America for its publication in serial form. During the past summer the 
appearance of the story in this way has created widespread comment 
which has now been drawn to the book just published. 

Opinions by some of the Leading Papers. 

" A vastly entertaining polemic. It directs attention to many undoubtedly 
neglected facts which writers of the North have ignored or minimized." 

— The New York Times Saturday Review of Books. 

"A noble work. It may well stand on the shelf beside Morlev's 
•Gladstone' and other epochal biographical works that have come into 
prominence. It is deeply interesting and thoroughly fair and just." 

— 77/1? Globe- Democrat^ St. Louis. 

" The book shows great research and is as complete as it could possibly be 
and every American should read it."— 7",*^ Xews, Providence. 

"A unique historical work."— r^,? Commercial Advertiser, New York. 

"Valuable as an historical document and as a witness to certain great facts 
in the past life of the South which have seldom been acknowledged by 
historians."— TV/if Post, Louisville. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK 



AN AMERICAN ADMIRAL. 



Forty-five Years Under the Flag. 

By WiNFiELD Scott Schley, Rear- Admiral, U. S. N. 
Illustrated. 8vo. Cloth, uncut edges, and gilt top, $3.00 net. 

About one-third of Admiral Schley's volume is devoted to the Spanish 
War, in which he became so great a figure. He tells his own story in 
simple and effective words. His recollections are constantly reinforced 
by references to dispatches and other documents. 

Readers will be surprised at the extent of Admiral Schley's experi- 
ences. He left the Naval Academy just before the outbreak of the Civil 
War and saw service with Farragut in the Gulf. Three chapters are 
devoted to Civil War events. His next important service was rendered 
during the opening of Corea to the commerce of the world, and the 
chapter in which he describes the storming of the forts is one of thrilling 
interest. Aqother important expedition in his life was the rescue of 
Greely, to which three chapters are devoted. Two other chapters per- 
tain to the Revolution in Chili, and the troubles growing out of the 
attack upon some of Admiral Schley's men in the streets of Valparaiso. 

Altogether the book contains thirty-eight chapters. It has been illus- 
trated from material furnished by Admiral Schley and through his sug- 
gestions, and makes an octavo volume of large size. It will appeal to 
every true-hearted American. 

The author says in his preface : " In times of danger and duty the writer 
endeavored to do the work set before him without fear of consequences. With 
this thought in mind, he has felt moved, as a duty to his wife, his children, 
and his name, to leave a record of his long professional life, which has not 
been without some prestige, at least for the flag he has loved and under which 
he has served the best years of his life."' 

" Rear-Admiral W. S. Schley's 'Forty-five Years Under the Flag' is the 
most valuable contribution to the history of the American Navy that has been 
written in many a year." — New York Times. 

" The author's career is well worthy of a book, and he has every reason for 
pride in telling of his forty-five active years in all parts of the world." 

—Edwin L. Shiiman in the Chicago Record-Herald. 

"It is a stirring story, told with the simple directness of a sailor. Its read- 
ing carries the conviction of its truthfulness. The Admiral could not have 
hoped to accomplish more." — Chicago Evening Post. 

" He has told his own story, in his own way, from his own viewpoint, and 
goes after his detractors, open and above board, with his big g:uns." 

— Washington Post. 

" It is a work that will interest everyone, from the sixteen-year-old school- 
boy who is studying history and loves tales of stirring adventure to the grand- 
sire whose blood still pulses hotly with patriotic pride at the recounting of 
valiant deeds of arms under our starry flag." — Boston American. 

' ' The Admiral tells the story well. His is a manly and straightforward 
style. He leaves nothing to doubt, nothing open to controversy." 

— Baltimore Sun. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



VIVID, MOVING, SYMPATHETIC HUMOROUS. 



A Diary from Dixie. 

By Mary Boykin Chesnut. Being her Diary from 
November, 1861, to August, 1865. Edited by Isabella D. 

Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary. Illustrated. 8vo. Orna- 
mental Cloth, $2.50 net; postage additional. 

Mrs. Chesnut was the most brilliant woman that the South 
has ever produced, and the charm of her writing is such as to 
make all Southerners proud and all Northerners envious. She was 
the wife of James Chesnut, Jr., who was United States Senator 
from South Carolina from 1859 to 1861, and acted as an aid to 
President Jefferson Davis, and was subsequently a Brigadier-Gen- 
eral in the Confederate Army. Thus it was that she was intimately 
acquainted with all the foremost men in the Southern cause. 

" In this diary is preserved the most moving; and vi\-id record of the South- 
ern Confederacy of which we have any knowledge. It is a piece of social 
history of inestimable value. It interprets to posterity the spirit in which the 
Southerners entered upon and strugf.ded through the war that ruined them. 
It paints poignantly but with simplicity the wreck of that old world which had 
so much about it that was beautiful and noble as well as evil. Students of 
American life have often smiled, and with reason, at the stilted and extrava- 
gant fashion in which the Southern woman had been described south of Mason 
and Dixon's line— the unconscious self-revelations of Mary Chesnut explain, 
if they do not justify, such extravagance. For here, we cannot but believe, 
is a creature of a fine type, a ' very woman,' a very Beatrice, frank, impetuous, 
loving, full of sympathy, full of humor. Like her prototype, she had preju- 
dices, and she knew little of the Northern people she criticised so severely ; 
but there is less bitterness in the e pages than we might have ex{>ected. Per- 
haps the editors have seen to that. However this may be they have done 
nothing to injure the writer's own nervous, unconventional style- a style 
breathing character and temperament as the flower breathes fragrance." 

— New York Tribune. 

"It is vritten straight from the heart, and with a natural grace of style 
that no amount of polishing could have imparted." — Chicago Record-Herald. 

"The editors are to be congratulated ; it is not every day that one comes 
on such material as this long-hidden diary." — Louisville Evening Post. 

" It is a book that would have delighted Charles Lamb." 

— Houston Chronicle. 

D . A P P L E T O X AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



A NOVEL THAT IS ALL TRUE. 

Bethany : A Story of the Old South. 

By Thomas E. Watson, author of " The Life 
and Times of Thomas Jefferson," etc. Illustrated. 
i2mo. Ornamental Cloth, $1.50. 

" Few writers of the present day have reached the deserved literary emi- 
nence and prominence that has been achieved by Thomas E. Watson, Presi- 
dential candidate of the People's Party, author of ' The Life and Times of 
Thomas Jefferson' and other important historical works. Mr. Watson is a 
student, historian, and biographer, as well as a finished orator. It comes in 
the nature of a pleasant surprise, therefore, to find that this brilliant author 
has turned his attention to fiction. Probably no writer of the present day 
brings just such broad knowledge, scholarly attainments, and intimate style 
into the composition of his books as does Mr. Watson. He is particularly 
qualified to bring to a successful termination any literary work he may attempt. 
In ' Bethany ' he tells in his brilliant style of the old South as he knew it in 
his bojhood. This work is only in part fiction. Mr. Watson has succeeded 
admirably in picturing the life of the people of Georgia during the anti- 
slavery controversy and the war itself. In doing this he has written a book 
that throbs with human emotions on every page and pulsates with strong, 
virile life in every sentence. Mr. Watson has written ' Bethany ' from the heart 
as well as from the head. With broad comprehension and unfailing accuracy 
he has drawn characters and depicted incidents which deserve to be considered 
as models of the people." 

"The Hon. Thomas E. Watson of Georgia is a man of many parts. 
Above all he is still able to learn, as those who will compare the second part 
of his ' Story of France ' with the first may easily see. In ' Bethany : A Story 
of the Old South,' he plunges into romance, it seems to us with complete suc- 
cess. The story is told directly, clearly, in excellent English, and is as vivid a 
oicture of a Southern family during the war as anyone could wish for." 

— New York Sun. 

"As a ' true picture of the times and the people,' as of war and its horrors, 
the book wiU be welcomed by both North and South. Clear, simple, occa- 
sionally abrupt, the story is always subordinated to the historical facts that lie 
back of it. Yet it cannot be gainsaid that each illumines the other, nor that 
' Bethany ' possesses distinct value as a just and genuine contribution to the 
literature of the present ' Southern revival.' "—Chicago Record- Herald. 

"The love-story of the young soldier and his faithful sweetheart is a per- 
fect idyll of old plantation life, and its sad ending fits properly into the tragedy 
of that fearful war." — St. Louis Globe- Democrat. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



A STORY OF AMERICAN LIFE. 

David Harum. 

Illustrated Edition. With 70 full-page and 
text pictures by B. West Clinedinst, and other 
text designs by C. D. Farrand, and a biography 
of the author by Forbes Heermans. i2mo. 
$1.50. 

" What seems to us to be the final judgment of 'David Harum ' is 
given in the Xorth American Review by no less a personage than John 
Oliver Hobbes. This review strikes at the root of the matter. 

"' It would not be presumptuous to say,' opines Mrs. Craigie, 'well 
remembering the magnificent ability of certain English authors of the 
present day, that not one could create a character which would win the 
whole English population as David Harum has won the American 
public. The reason is plain. With so many class distinctions, a na- 
tional figure is out of the question. A national hero — yes; but a man 
for " winterin' and summerin' with" — no. Social equality and inde- 
pendence of thought, in spite of all abortive attempts to introduce the 
manners and traditions of feudal Europe, are in the very air of the 
United States. One could not find an American man or woman of the 
true st(jck who had not known intimately, or who did not count among 
his or her ancestors, connections, relatives, a David Harum. The type, 
no doubt, is getting old : becoming more and more "removed" from the 
younger generation. In the course of the next twenty years it may 
become so changed as to seem extinct, but it is a national figure — cer- 
tainly the most original, probably the purest in blood. And the spirit 
of Harum is the undying spirit — no matter how much modified it may 
eventually become by refinement, travel, and foreign influence — of the 
American people. Individuals may change, but the point of view 
remains unalterable. ' " — New York Mail and Express. 

" ' David Harum ' is one of those extremely rare and perfectly fresh 
creations in current ficiion which really enrich our literature. In brief, 
it is a masterpiece, and one that deser\'es an immense popularity. No 
words can adequately describe its wholesome, sparkling humor, its quaint 
and endearing originality, its genuine Yankee wit and native shrewdness. 
A well-nigh perfect work it is^a creation which will take a permanent 
place among American literary portraits." — Literary Review. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



AN INSPIRING BOOK. 



The Young Man and the World. 

By Albert J. Beveridge, U. S. Senator from Indiana, 
Author of "The Russian Advance," i2mo. Ornamental 

Cloth, $1.50 net. 

This book will go into every household where there is a son and a 
mother. It is a talk with the young man about the young man of 
the young man's country by its most prominent young man. 

Plowboy at 12 ; logger at 14 ; graduated from college, De Pauw, at 23 ; 
plainsman, law clerk, lawyer ; U. S. Senator at 36 — that is what Senator 
Beveridge, poor and without a pull, has done by sheer pluck and hard 
work. And his steady conservative work in the Senate has won him the 
equal regard of older men also. His name spells success. 

Bishop Charlns C. McCabe says : " I wish that 20,000,000 copies of 
the book might be published." 

John Afitchell%z.y& : "I trust it may have a place in the life and 
in the home of every young man." 

Alfred Henry Lewis says : " It is a sparkling well-head of courage, 
optimism, and counsel." 

Senator William P. Frye says: "I have no hesitation in com- 
mending it to the young men of our country." 

Speaker J. G. Cannon says : " It is a very interesting book by a 
very interesting man." 

Representative Champ Clark says : " It is very worthy the perusal 
of every youth in the land." 

David War field says : " If the reader heeds its precepts 
' It must follow as the night the day 
Thou canst not then be false to any man.' 

Hamlet, Act 1, Sc. S." 

James Rudolph Garfield says : " I have read it with a great deal of 
interest." 

President Edzviti H. Hughes says : " Any young man who reads 
this book cannot fail to be made stronger and better." 

President W. E. Stone says : " It is brim full of suggestions which 
every young man should know and heed." 

General Charles King says : " Here is a book our American youth 
may study with his Bible." 

A cowboy in Arizona writes : " It is the embodiment of every- 
thing honorable, noble, and upright in life." 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK 



REVISED NEW EDITION. 



The Presidents of the United States. 

By JoHW FiSKE, Cakl Schurz, Robert C. Winthkop, Daniel G. 
GiLMAN, William Walter Phelps, George Ticknor Curtis, George 
Bancroft, John Hav and others. Edited by General James Grant 
Wilson. New and revised edition with complete life of William McKinley 
and sketch of Theodore Roosevelt. Illustrated with steel engraving^s and 
photogravures. 8vo. Cloth. $3.50. Half Morocco, or Half Calf, f6.oo. 



This book has been the standard authority for many years and 
justly so. Its list of contributors lifts it far above the commonplace, 
and infinitely removes it from the possibility of political coloring or 
sectionalism. The article on President McKinley gives a brief and 
accurate resume of the Spanish war while the book as a whole is a 
composite review of the constitutional history of the United States 
with the White House as the keynote. 



"A book well worth owning, for reading and for reference." — The Outlook. 

"Such a work as this can not fail to appeal to the pride of patriotic Americans." 
— Chicago Dial. 

"A monumental volume, which no American who cares for the memor\' of tlie 
public men of his country can afford to be without." — Ne-w York Mail and Exprtss. 

"A valuable addition to both our bioRraphical and historical literature, and 
meets a want long recognized." — Baton Advertiser. 

" A book which every one should read over and over again. . . . We have care- 
fully run tlirough it, and laid it down with the feeling that some such book ought to 
find its way into every household." — New York Herald. 

"General Wilson has performed a public service in presenting this volume to the 
public in so attractive a shape. It is full of incentive to ambitious youth ; it abounds 
in encouragement to every patriotic heart." — Charleston News and Courier. 

" It is precisely the book which ought to have a very wide sale in this countrj' — 
a book which one needs to own rather than to read and lay aside. No common- 
school library or collection of books for young readers should be without it." — 
The Churchman. 

"These names are in themselves sufficient to guarantee adequacy of treatment 
and interest in the presentation, and it is safe to say that such succinct biographies 
of the complete portrait callerj' of our Presidents, written with such unquestioned 
ability, have never before been published." — Harijord Courant. 

"Just the sort of book that the American who wishes to fix in his mind the 
varying phases of his countrj-'s history as it is woven on the warp of the adminis- 
trations will find most useful. Everj-thing is presented in a clear-cut way, and no 
plensanter excursions into history can be found than a study of 'The Presidents of 
the United States.' " — Philadelphia Press. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 



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